CIO OPINION business leaders are faced with more elaborate systems , and as a result , more complicated decisions . In fact , 65 % of 200 decision-makers surveyed by McKinsey said business decision-making processes have become increasingly more complex in recent years .
No doubt , this makes it harder for business leaders to make decisions and keep pace with their competitors .
With competition fiercer than ever , firms need to be agile . And , as demonstrated by the pandemic , unexpected events are inevitable . Even though businesses have learnt to rely on data-driven systems to help them make tough decisions , disruption is always on the horizon .
This has been even more relevant in recent times . In a poll of 200 business leaders in 2020 , 60 % said that since the pandemic began , they were forced to make faster decisions – and bigger ones too . Not only that , but Unicorn startups can emerge almost overnight to take over entire markets .
What this means is that CIOs have reached a critical point . Across business operations and different geographies , as well as across digital and physical barriers too , leaders are faced with more decisions , more moving parts and more repercussions .
While many companies have turned to objective , data-driven decision systems to try and maintain their positions , many problems still remain .
The data problem
Poor data quality is a frequent problem for a lot of decision-makers , including not being able to find or access the required data , nor being able to flag its relevance . Enterprise data may even become isolated and inaccessible from the system – this is referred to as a data silo .
Since a modern enterprise has several hundred assets and applications , and many different products , locations and operations – data silos are more common than not .
Even a small decision can potentially have a domino effect on all different parts of the company , especially in fields where different operations are all connected , such as in IT transformation .
Not being able to foresee the relationships between the entire company landscape raises the chances of decisions having an unfortunate impact on different
With the help of Enterprise Architecture , CIOs can make informed , data-driven decisions in real-time , leading companies to overall business success .
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