How do you make better business decisions? Do you trust the data, follow your intuition, ask AI, or combine all three? In this episode of The Underdog Dentist Show, Dr. Girish Likhani and Dr. Nikhil Malhotra discuss how we approach data driven decision making, business intelligence, AI, team autonomy, and speed inside Likhani Healthcare Solutions India and Likhani Group Singapore. We have seen an important problem while working with clinics, hospitals, pharmaceutical brands, and other healthcare businesses: sometimes the data required to make a decision was never properly collected in the first place. Without reliable data, decisions can quickly become based on instinct. Should we increase the marketing budget? Should we stop a campaign? Should we hire another team member? Should we reduce costs? Should we invest more in SEO, AI optimization, paid marketing, or PR? Should the business expand into another market? These decisions require more than simply asking what feels right. In this episode, we discuss a simple process we use around data: collection, segregation, analysis, and application. But collecting more data does not automatically produce better decisions. You also need to understand which metrics actually matter, why they are being measured, whether the information is complete, and whether the data can genuinely help you move toward the desired business outcome. Pasted text We also discuss the role of AI in business decision making. AI and large language models can help organize, analyze, segregate, and interpret information. But our approach is that consequential business decisions still require human judgment, particularly when relationships, company culture, financial realities, future plans, and other contextual factors are involved. Pasted text Then comes another challenge: autonomy. If every decision requires the founder, the organization eventually creates a bottleneck. We discuss why team members should understand the goal, interpret the relevant data, identify problems, suggest solutions, and increasingly take responsibility for decisions within their areas of expertise. Finally, we talk about something I personally value heavily: Speed. Making good decisions matters. But as an organization grows, the ability to create a decision making process that can be repeated efficiently also becomes important. Our approach is to improve the quality of the decision process first and then work on increasing its speed. Pasted text If you are a founder, healthcare entrepreneur, clinic owner, hospital leader, pharmaceutical professional, manager, marketer, or business owner, this episode explores how data, AI, human judgment, autonomy, and speed interact when important business decisions need to be made. Listen to the complete episode of The Underdog Dentist Show. Subscribe for conversations around data driven decision making, business strategy, AI in business, healthcare management, leadership, business intelligence, healthcare marketing, entrepreneurship, and building scalable organizations.
