Evidence Based Management Essay

Using evidences or facts to run the organization is not a new concept in the management practice. Some managers use their experiences, research, articles and other evidences conducted by business experts to make decisions in their organization. Using these evidences to create solutions to solve problems in the organization is known as evidence-based management (EBMgt). For the proponent of EBMgt, this decision–making process has some advantages in its implementation. Creating a good quality decision is a linear function with an improvement of data and information that are used as decision supports. Having reliable evidences and using systematic process, managers can create a better managerial and organizational decisions. In this good environment, organizations also will perform with a flexible way in implementing all decisions because they are resulted from numerous good researches. Finally, this model also will create a learning environment for managers to improve their comp etence to make a good decision. For the opponent of EBMgt, this practice is hard to be implemented in the organization because some reasons. Sometimes, it seems too much information for managers to consider as decision supports. Furthermore, from those data, managers frequently feel difficult to pick the reliable information. When managers think that they have a good evidence, sometimes they cannot use it as their decision support because it is not relevant to their organization in certain conditions. Lastly, managers frequently fall into the wrong business practice because a half-done solution that is offered by consultants. After that, managers often see other consulting firms to try misleading. To understand more deeply about EBMgt, let’s see an example of PT KAI, the Indonesian state-owned company that operate railways. Since the last four years, management of PT KAI has changed the company from getting loss USD 8.5 Million in 2008 to having profit more than USD 45 Million in 2013. The remarkable change in the company could not be separated from many innovations that has been applied by its management. In 2009, the management did some researches and survey about the company’s problems causing the lack of revenue. After that, they found two main issues that were human resources and services problem. To solve the first problem, the management applied the meritocracy system in its human resources system.