Using the Data to Drive Decisions for Better Business in Parking Management
Steve Jobs was quoted as saying, “have the courage to follow your heart and intuition; they somehow know what you want to become.“ In the realm of the business world, including the parking industry, the use of intuition has been the sign of a good business person. The art of knowing when something is right or wrong has a lot of importance and influence for the business. When polled, over half of all US citizens use their intuition to drive decision making. This “gut feeling” can be a helpful tool, however, it should not be the sole basis for decisions of a business.
PwC conducted a survey of over 1,000 senior executives to see whether intuition or data was the best approach to decision making. In this survey the data was shown that those that used both intuition and data were three times more likely to show significant improvements in decision making in comparison to those that only relied on that gut feeling. This is because data, both qualitative and quantitative, can assist in verification and understanding of a situation.
What is data-driven decision making?
The process of using data to inform a decision in the decision making process is known as data driven decision making. This can ensure the right path is taken based on data and current trends. The collection of data can take many forms such as surveys, testing, market research, shifts in demographic data, and the generation of data through application services.
The scale to which data decision making is used is dependent on the overall goals of the business, types of data needed, and the quality needed and have access to. Since the daily average of data generated by everyone on Earth is 2.5 quintillion bytes, the use of data and its collection has never been easier.
Benefits of Data-Driven decision making
Besides having the ability to have charts and graphs to look through piles of data easily, there are many other benefits to using data in decision making. The first is the ability to be proactive through the prediction of trends. In the parking industry this could be anticipated traffic or flow of cars in a parking area for a certain time of day, or an event. An operator can also be more confident in the decisions of the parking operation, as it has data evidence to back it up. It isn’t just a feeling- it’s there in black and white. In addition to predictions and more confident decisions, an operator can also realize cost savings. Data in the parking facility can pinpoint certain types of parking users or other areas where costs can escalate or impact overall revenue of the parking area.
How to be more data driven
There are many ways to ensure that decisions are more data driven. Depending on the facility, goals, and access to data an operator can use any of these ways to be better informed for decisions that impact the parking facility or area. The first is to be on the lookout for patterns or correlations between different data points. For example, if a parking lot shows an increased traffic flow on Fridays due to the weekend, a decision may need to be made to have weekend rates or some form of time restrictions to increase parking revenue, Not only would this increase the number of possible spaces to fill throughout the day, but it could also be used as a way to avoid the long term park that can lead to overcrowding. Another way to become more data driven is through the use of the data- always tie a decision to data. Whatever the decision, there should be a reason based on a data point or points. One should identify the data available that can be used to make the decisions for the business or property. Data should also be placed into some form of visuals to be able to easily see patterns and a high volume of data in a smaller space.
Data and ParkingBadge
ParkingBadge has developed a state of the art parking management application that can be used from anywhere in the world on a supported mobile device, computer, or tablet. Created in 2019, this application is able to be fully customized to a parking area or facility meeting the needs and goals of the parking facility. In addition, this application generates real-time data that can be broken down into different data sets all with a click of a button. These data tables and charts are able to assist in real world decision making no matter the time of day. This added feature is essential for the successful operation of the modern parking facility or business wanting to upgrade their parking.
Click here for more information about Parking Badge’s innovative parking software and how it can drive your business decisions today through data- https://parkingbadge.com/solutions/
