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Exploring “analytics” to make better decisions – the questions executives need to ask

Liam Fahey (Author of Competitors (Wiley, 1999), is executive director of Leadership Forum Inc., an executive leadership education company (Liam.Fahey@leadershipforuminc.com).)

Strategy & Leadership

ISSN: 1087-8572

Article publication date: 4 September 2009

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to describe in detail how executives' careful questioning can contribute to the decision analytics process.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper lays out the questions that a senior executive should ask to guide analytics professionals in the analysis work they do. It also explains the rationale behind the questions.

Findings

The paper finds that a set of well‐chosen questions can transform the quality and relevance of the outputs so that executive decision makers can be better informed and thus make better decisions.

Practical implications

The questions senior executives should ask to guide analytics work are very similar to questions developed to guide competitive intelligence analysis. The process outlined here shows how executives and analytics professionals can work with each other to help ensure that decision relevant outputs are created.

Originality/value

With this set of questions executives can guide analytics work so that it is not driven solely by the technology or expertise of the analytics professionals.

Keywords

Citation

Fahey, L. (2009), "Exploring “analytics” to make better decisions – the questions executives need to ask", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 37 No. 5, pp. 12-18. https://doi.org/10.1108/10878570910986434

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2009, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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