no time for indecisiveness. Big decisions change strategy and the long-term course for businesses, and retailers need to make practical use of data in order to make speedy and sophisticated big decisions for competitive advantage,” he said. Doone said that it is promising to see a change in the decision making practices of retailers. As a result of big data or analytics, 66 per cent of retail executives have changed the way they’ve approached big decision making in the past two years, says PwC’s report Gut & gigabytes: Capitalising on the art & science in decision making. Yet 44 per cent of executives said that the quality, accuracy or completeness of data is not high enough. Looking towards 2015, 41 per cent of retailers consider that they are fully prepared to make the most important decision they will need to make, while 54 per cent are somewhat prepared. At 32 per cent, around a third of executives consider that their most important decision will be based on a new opportunity, while 56 per cent plan to re-visit their most important decision after 3 to 6 months to re-evaluate new information. The top three goals among retail executives for the coming year are corporate restructuring, collaborating with competitors, and entering a new industry or starting a business. “In a world of overwhelming inputs, it’s a skill to learn what not to react to. From what we’re seeing in the market, New Zealand’s retailers are behind global counterparts. Imperfection isn’t always bad but retailers can gain new insights from incomplete or imperfect data, provided they are triangulated with other information. The survey findings affirm a balanced approach to using data and analytics to business-defining decisions,” Doone said.