"Data-driven" sounds just like any other buzzword thrown around in business and with very poor definition. I will not attempt to define it. you can find it's definition here. This is how amazon goes about to combine a strong quantitative and analytical culture with a willingness to make bold decisions.
Math
There is a right answer or a wrong answer, a better answer or a worse answer, and math tells us which is which.
Shorten delivery time
Opening a new fulfillment center is an example. We use history from our existing fulfillment network to estimate seasonal peaks and to model alternatives for new capacity. We look at anticipated product mix, including product dimensions and weight, to decide how much space we need and whether we need a facility for smaller "sortable" items or for larger items that usually ship alone. To shorten delivery times and reduce outbound transportation costs, we analyze prospective locations based on proximity to customers, transportation hubs, and existing facilities. Quantitative analysis improves the customer's experience and our cost structure.
Just the right inventory
Similarly, most of our inventory purchase decisions can be numerically modeled and analyzed. We want products in stock and immediately available to customers, and we want minimal total inventory in order to keep associated holding costs, and thus prices, low. To achieve both, there is a right amount of inventory. We use historical purchase data to forecast customer demand for a product and expected variability in that demand. We use data on the historical performance of vendors to estimate replenishment times. We can determine where to stock the product within our fulfillment network based on inbound and outbound transportation costs, storage costs, and anticipated customer locations. With this approach, we keep over one million unique items under our own roof, immediately available for customers, while still turning inventory more than fourteen times per year.
Math Vs Judgement and opinions
The above decisions require us to make some assumptions and judgments, but in such decisions, judgment and opinion come into play only as junior partners. The heavy lifting is done by the math.
Where there is no historical data judgment prevails
Not all of our important decisions can be made in this enviable, math-based way. Sometimes we have little or no historical data to guide us and proactive experimentation is impossible, impractical, or tantamount to a decision to proceed. Though data, analysis, and math play a role, the prime ingredient in these decisions is judgment.[1]
As our shareholders know, we have made a decision to continuously and significantly lower prices for customers year after year as our efficiency and scale make it possible. This is an example of a very important decision that cannot be made in a math-based way. In fact, when we lower prices, we go against the math that we can do, which always says that the smart move is to raise prices. We have significant data related to price elasticity. With fair accuracy, we can predict that a price reduction of a certain percentage will result in an increase in units sold of a certain percentage. With rare exceptions, the volume increase in the short term is never enough to pay for the price decrease. However, our quantitative understanding of elasticity is short-term. We can estimate what a price reduction will do this week and this quarter. But we cannot numerically estimate the effect that consistently lowering prices will have on our business over five years or ten years or more. Our *judgment *is that relentlessly returning efficiency improvements and scale economies to customers in the form of lower prices creates a virtuous cycle that leads over the long term to a much larger dollar amount of free cash flow, and thereby to a much more valuable Amazon.com.
Wide-Agreement Vs Controversial
Math-based decisions command wide agreement, whereas judgment-based decisions are rightly debated and often controversial, at least until put into practice and demonstrated. Any institution unwilling to endure controversy must limit itself to decisions of the first type. In our view, doing so would not only limit controversy ---it would also significantly limit innovation and long-term value creation.
Back to code!✌🏾
reference
- "The Structure of 'Unstructured' Decision Processes" is a fascinating 1976 paper by Henry Mintzberg, Duru Raisinghani, and Andre Theoret. They look at how institutions make strategic, "unstructured" decisions as opposed to more quantifiable "operating" decisions. Among other gems you will find in the paper is this: "Excessive attention by management scientists to operating decisions may well cause organizations to pursue inappropriate courses of action more efficiently." They are not debating the importance of rigorous and quantitative analysis, but only noting that it gets a lopsided amount of study and attention, probably because of the very fact that it is more quantifiable.