HBR: The Discipline of Business Experimentation

Link to Harvard Business Review article on experimentation and analytics in business settings

https://hbr.org/2014/12/the-discipline-of-business-experimentation

Soon after Ron Johnson left Apple to become the CEO of J.C. Penney, in 2011, his team implemented a bold plan that eliminated coupons and clearance racks, filled stores with branded boutiques, and used technology to eliminate cashiers, cash registers, and checkout counters. Yet just 17 months after Johnson joined Penney, sales had plunged, losses had soared, and Johnson had lost his job. The retailer then did an about-face.

How could Penney have gone so wrong? Didn’t it have tons of transaction data revealing customers’ tastes and preferences?

Presumably it did, but the problem is that big data can provide clues only about the past behavior of customers—not about how they will react to bold changes. When it comes to innovation, then, most managers must operate in a world where they lack sufficient data to inform their decisions. Consequently, they often rely on their experience or intuition. But ideas that are truly innovative—that is, those that can reshape industries—typically go against the grain of executive experience and conventional wisdom.

Managers can, however, discover whether a new product or business program will succeed by subjecting it to a rigorous test. Think of it this way: A pharmaceutical company would never introduce a drug without first conducting a round of experiments based on established scientific protocols. (In fact, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires extensive clinical trials.) Yet that’s essentially what many companies do when they roll out new business models and other novel concepts. Had J.C. Penney done thorough experiments on its CEO’s proposed changes, the company might have discovered that customers would probably reject them…

Read rest of article on HBR:
https://hbr.org/2014/12/the-discipline-of-business-experimentation