How investing in IT pays off 

What was the future planning and strategy development process for companies in the past? Management sat around a table and made strategic business decisions based on the vision, their experience, and their convictions. The results were often good, but not always. Poor management decisions were frequently the result of insufficient or inadequate information being available to the decision-makers to reach meaningful strategic decisions.

While IT was mainly for data management and processing a few years ago, its mass of data today helps entrepreneurs make their decisions based on real-time data. Data from the whole company, and beyond, is collected and linked by means of predictive analytics, making the condition of the entire business apparent at all times and allowing events that are likely to occur to be foreseen. This allows business leaders to respond much more quickly to irregularities and changes in the company, putting them in the position of being able to operate preventively, rather than reactively.

The algorithms detect signs of machine failures early on so that maintenance can be scheduled to prevent actual breakdowns. Invoice irregularities and defective products are reliably detected by algorithms as well. Predictive analytics also helps with identifying up-selling potential and dissatisfied customers early on, and with retaining good employees. This is because IT is able to identify expected future developments long in advance and much more accurately than people can, thereby making a significant contribution to meaningful business decisions.

But what happens when you continue to rely on the IT solution you have counted on for years? Using it only for data processing and management, but not as a source of accurate data and transparent analyses of your company and the market? Well, that would be like putting your money on the steam engine in the age of electricity. Today, we can say with certainty that no business was able to succeed that way over the long term.