There’s Money To Be Made During a Recession For Businesses With the Right Insights – How To Confidently Make Better Data-Backed Decisions

Recessions: Scary, but inevitable. 

Forecasters can see the rising signs of this massive wave on the horizon, and there’s only so much we can do to prepare on land. We can’t build a wall across the entire ocean, and we can’t turn the tides. So what is a business’s best defense strategy? 

Make data-backed decisions instead of just hunkering down—there’s money to be made for companies with the right insights. 

Venmo and Airbnb (among many other successful companies) were both founded in 2008. And dozens of others over the years have thrived through recession, like Lego and MailChimp. 

So what did these businesses have that others didn’t during economic downturn? They had accurate insights into what operational and financial levers leaders in the company could pull to see growth given new circumstances. Lego expanded its global market while MailChimp rehauled their business model and became Freemium-based (and neither took that leap blindly). 

That is, leaders were able to see who and what drove the financials of the business, plus the exact action items they could take to make positive differences. And that came down to smart business intelligence, data systems, and being able to make truly data-backed decisions. Again – there’s money to be made, even in recession, for the companies with the right insights. 

So here’s what you need in order to do the same… 

You must be able to see (visualized, like a graph, not a pages-long report) the financial numbers, discover the exact drivers of those financials, and identify the levers you can pull in order to spur growth. 

When this data is comprehensive, accurate, and visualized, leaders are able to truly make data-backed decisions with objectivity, as opposed to the more common decisions based on multiple managers’ subjective summary of siloed data. This data, when it’s connected and visually designed to show the decisions and actions it informs, allows leaders to do their jobs better. It allows them to see opportunities as they become apparent. It allows them to be more informed, and to make better decisions, faster, which is a cornerstone of successful businesses. 

So how do you get that data and start using it? 

You could put together a team consisting of a Data Architect/Query Whiz, a Business Analyst, and a Data Visualization Specialist. 

But aside from the obvious time and resources loss it would take to do such a thing, we already broke it down here why this isn’t your best move. (TL;DR: It would cost you about $500k/yr and it would get done poorly). 

Or. 

You hire someone where this is all they do. 

You source to outside pros whose entire business is doing this one thing for your business… Someone who eats, sleeps, dreams, and breathes actionable data. (That’s us if we’re not being obvious enough.) 

Without sounding too arrogant, we know (because we’ve seen the data) that we are that much better than people who do this on their own. Ask the average person if they would be skilled enough to change the timing belt on their car, and 95%+ will say no. Ask them to do something that’s objectively more technical, like design their own data dashboards, and there’s a gross overconfidence from people with no training in this. 

They create what they think is ‘good’ BI and in actuality, it fails time and again in cognitive load and usability tests. Most notably, it fails the test of users being able to make accelerated, informed, rational decisions. 

So how do you prep for the looming wave? By making better decisions, faster, with action-based data that shows the relationship between finance and ops.

Suddenly, you’ll be able to see the impact of the projects you’re testing and running, determine the levers you can pull in order to spur growth, and know in which order to pull them, no matter the economic circumstances. 

Start here.