"In GOD we Trust, for Everything else there's Data!"
A very powerful statement of our times when there is volumes of data available at finger tips. Gone are the days when people used to take decisions on 'Gut feel'. These are the times of the data managers. Getting into detail today does not mean talking to every stake holder and understanding the various angles of a task/issue at hand. It means to analyze the data from all possible angles.
Statistics and its tools have been of amazing assistance in decision making. While some research needs to be done still but I believe it has started acting as a conditioning tool too and there is a grave danger involved not only to the businesses of our times but to the society too.
Let me elaborate this point.
It is believed that Air is the safest mode of transport today. Why?
1. No of deaths by air are far below than by any other mode.
2. Added to it, point number 1 has been shouted from tree tops since a very long time. This has let into a slow conditioning of the society into believing the statistics.
But now just try to look the same data from a different angle.
1. Calculate the number of vehicles by any mode of transport. Now get the percentage of fatal accidents over the number of vehicles. (Because number of vehicles mean number of drivers).
2. Calculate the number of driving hours in each mode of transport. Higher these hours, higher the probability of accidents.
There could be many other angles but these 2 would give you an idea.
Recently, we had an interesting case of theft in one of our warehouses for which our team went to lodge an FIR. The police station refused to lodge an FIR at all giving reason that it was an internal issue. We did go the legal route but the question was as to why this refusal?
The reason became clear when we realized that the police station and its employees are rated on the success rate of closure on cases. With limited manpower, they can focus on limited cases and thus they pick and choose. People with good statistics get promoted. The ones who registered all the cases but had poor success rate are punished. The fact is also corroborated by numerous media articles where there is a failure of fir registration.
Now, interestingly, when the statistics agency publishes the data of reduction in the crime rate, it has no way to find out how many cases were not registered. Hence the statistics keep on improving year on year.
And the citizens are getting conditioned by these statistics that the city/country is safe while it is definitely not.
I just hope that our situation should not be the same as that of the frogs in an experiment where they were put in a bowl of water whose temperature was increased slowly. Frogs kept on adjusting till they were boiled in the water.
Manish Saini
A very powerful statement of our times when there is volumes of data available at finger tips. Gone are the days when people used to take decisions on 'Gut feel'. These are the times of the data managers. Getting into detail today does not mean talking to every stake holder and understanding the various angles of a task/issue at hand. It means to analyze the data from all possible angles.
Statistics and its tools have been of amazing assistance in decision making. While some research needs to be done still but I believe it has started acting as a conditioning tool too and there is a grave danger involved not only to the businesses of our times but to the society too.
Let me elaborate this point.
It is believed that Air is the safest mode of transport today. Why?
1. No of deaths by air are far below than by any other mode.
2. Added to it, point number 1 has been shouted from tree tops since a very long time. This has let into a slow conditioning of the society into believing the statistics.
But now just try to look the same data from a different angle.
1. Calculate the number of vehicles by any mode of transport. Now get the percentage of fatal accidents over the number of vehicles. (Because number of vehicles mean number of drivers).
2. Calculate the number of driving hours in each mode of transport. Higher these hours, higher the probability of accidents.
There could be many other angles but these 2 would give you an idea.
Recently, we had an interesting case of theft in one of our warehouses for which our team went to lodge an FIR. The police station refused to lodge an FIR at all giving reason that it was an internal issue. We did go the legal route but the question was as to why this refusal?
The reason became clear when we realized that the police station and its employees are rated on the success rate of closure on cases. With limited manpower, they can focus on limited cases and thus they pick and choose. People with good statistics get promoted. The ones who registered all the cases but had poor success rate are punished. The fact is also corroborated by numerous media articles where there is a failure of fir registration.
Now, interestingly, when the statistics agency publishes the data of reduction in the crime rate, it has no way to find out how many cases were not registered. Hence the statistics keep on improving year on year.
And the citizens are getting conditioned by these statistics that the city/country is safe while it is definitely not.
I just hope that our situation should not be the same as that of the frogs in an experiment where they were put in a bowl of water whose temperature was increased slowly. Frogs kept on adjusting till they were boiled in the water.
Manish Saini
