"[T]here are some important things to remember. Resources are limited and opportunities are infinite. The essence of strategy is choosing to perform activities differently than rivals." (McGee, Sammut-Bonnici, 2015). Similarly, Lafley and Martin (Playing to Win) write “In short, strategy is choice.” Both, of course, building off of Porter: “[Strategy is] deliberately choosing a different set of activities to deliver unique value.”

The rub is that making a choice is hard. Choosing a path means forgoing other paths. What if it’s the wrong path? What if the path leads to results worse than the status quo would?

The sources of indecision are numerous and powerful. Beyond risk aversion, a focus on short-term outcomes is a common barrier. Quarterly results need to show growth; strategic choices take time to deliver returns. Leadership biases, whether personal, comfirmational or anchoring, often make no decision the more appealing choice. Groupthink and peer pressure also tend to favor the status quo.

While all of these hurdles need to be overcome in their own right, good analytics provides a powerful boost in jumping over them. Strategic decisions often involve a high level of uncertainty and complexity. Business leaders may have difficulty making decisions without sufficient information or understanding of the situation. This is where you advanced analytics team comes into play. The ability to leverage state of the art analytics tools significantly de-risks strategic decsions.

While, as a former Fortune 100 CFO told us, “The data doesn’t get you all the way to bright,” without it, you’re making a difficult choice even harder. What's your organization going to do differently? Without the hard choices, where or how are you competing? Why don't I just buy from your competitor?

Tie your analytics to your strategy, put your biases aside, and assume some risk. If the decision is easy, that’s a sign it’s probably not enough. What very smart thing are you not doing?

If you don’t have a good answer to this, you’re probably allocating those limited resources too broadly. Have the courage of your high-quality analysis and put your chips on the table …

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