Deploy technology for quick decision

Organisations need to recognise invisible losses caused by decision-making delays

Income. Innovation. Sales. Marketing. Profit. The top five priorities of any organisation are facing a silent threat from a sustained lag in the speed of decision-making. Companies are recognising that a longer turnaround time in making decisions — external or internal — is leading to productivity losses, which, in turn, are affecting their profit margins.

According to research by Forrester, 48 minutes of every work hour in a typical product team is spent waiting for decisions to be made. On an average eight-hour work day, the figures translates to an astonishing 3.5 hours of “wait time” — productivity time spent on waiting for instructions from seniors. The report added that by cutting the “wait time” by half (if applied to a 25-person team), an organisation would gain over $370,000 annually in productivity time.

Enabling efficient communication across multiple teams in any organisation is one way of increasing the speed of decision-making. For instance, deals could be closed faster if finance and legal advisers could collaborate with the sales team in real time. To facilitate this flow of information and collaboration among employees across levels, it is necessary to adopt the latest technology tools.

As it turns out, professionals in multi-dimensional or flexible workplaces were the first to identify and adapt to this need. They were quick to adopt tech-based solutions such as personal IMs (instant messaging) and WhatsApp for communication, even before their organisations acted on the requirement. And while such solutions did lead to an improvement in communication processes, they did not facilitate decision-making processes in many enterprises. Meanwhile, many companies that turned to the more collaborative team messaging apps reported faster and better team communication and collaboration.

To ensure faster decision-making, organisations need to leverage knowledge across the enterprise with the help of online, seamless, integrated and intuitive collaboration tools that enhance employees’ ability to work together. Team messaging platforms are the obvious answer, given their flexibility in adapting to the nature of workplace environment today.

Team messengers enable the creation of multiple teams (internal and external), giving direct visibility of multiple projects. More importantly, they help employees start conversations, leading to real-time decision-making. Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, better known as SpaceX, an American aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company, has reduced its average wait time for defining product requirements by 50 per cent and eliminated the costly weekly four-hour status meetings by implementing a collaboration system.

Collaborative tools, including team messaging platforms such as Slack, Flock, and HipChat enable decisions to be made in parallel, rather than in a linear fashion. Instead of waiting for a decision to begin work, team messengers bring employees into the process earlier, enabling decisions to be made simultaneously.

In the business ecosystem, where stakes are high and competition is tough, seamless communication is vital for smooth operations and quicker decision-making. Unwarranted delays, slowdowns and gaps in communication systems can throw up a host of challenges, and negatively affect sales and profitability.

In the words of Benjamin Franklin, “You may delay, but time will not.” Organisations today need to recognise the invisible losses that they are incurring due to delays in decision-making at the workplace. The next step is to harness the power of technology — without further delay.