Data and innovation

Many companies primarily use data to drive their decisions. Such companies will struggle to innovate.

Innovation is revolutionary changes in solutions for existing problems.

If a company uses data to make decisions, it can only improve existing solutions. This is because data can only give insight into existing solutions.

If a company uses intuition to make decisions, it can look at problems at a fundamental level. It can come up with completely new solutions. It can innovate.

For example, DVD rental companies in the 1990s solved the problem of in-home entertainment. A data driven rental company can improve the solution with better location of rental stores. An Intuition driven rental company can innovate by moving to an internet streaming model.