A step-by-step guide to smart business experiments

A step-by-step guide to smart business experiments

Article Type: Abstracts From: Development and Learning in Organizations, Volume 25, Issue 6

Anderson E.T. and Simester D.Harvard Business Review, March 2011, Vol. 89 No. 3, Start page: 98, No. of pages: 7

The power of analytics in decision making is well understood, but few companies have what it takes to successfully implement a complex analytics program. Most firms will get greater value from learning to do something simpler: basic business experiments. Managers need to become adept at routinely using techniques employed by scientists and medical researchers. Specifically, they need to embrace the “test and learn” approach: Take one action with one group of customers, a different action (or no action at all) with a control group of customers, and then compare the results. The feedback from even a handful of experiments can yield immediate and dramatic improvements. This article provides a step-by-step guide to conducting business experiments. They look at organizational obstacles to success and outline seven rules to follow.Article type: viewpointISSN: 0017-8012Reference: 40AL807

Keywords: Analysis, Corporate strategy, Decision making, Experiments, Marketing, Science