Recommending the Concept of "Fact-Based Management"—Lessons from the "Professional Baseball Team Satisfaction Survey"
To advance organizational activities effectively and efficiently, "fact-based management" is considered crucial, rather than relying solely on past experience or intuition. This approach constantly questions whether "fact-based data exists" and advocates for making objective judgments and taking action based on data. This concept is often cited and highly valued in quality control activities on manufacturing sites. To use a baseball analogy, there is a philosophy called "ID baseball" (where ID stands for Important Data). ID baseball is a strategy that seeks to make decisions about team tactics, player performance, and pitcher ball selection through scientific and logical thinking based on data, rather than relying on experience or intuition. This term and perspective on baseball were popularized by Katsuya Nomura during his time as manager of the Yakult Swallows. ID baseball is, in essence, "fact-based management."
You may have recently heard keywords like "big data" and "data science." The use of data is gaining considerable attention, with books related to statistics becoming bestsellers and deep learning becoming a hot topic in society. Advances in information technology have made it possible to acquire large and diverse datasets in various fields such as business, government, medicine, and sports. The goal is to use this data to extract valuable information (information that translates to profit in business) and connect it to action. The application of big data and data science is, in fact, the practice of "fact-based management."
My specialty is "applied statistical analysis," and I conduct my research and educational activities with the understanding that it is a discipline for "fact-based management." Here, I will introduce my research on a "customer satisfaction index model for professional baseball teams." This study targets the services of professional baseball to construct a causal model of service quality and customer satisfaction, verifying and quantifying the causal relationships. Services have a characteristic of intangibility, which generally makes it difficult to quantify evaluations of service quality. In this research, we have customers (fans) evaluate service quality based on their perceived quality (how fans perceived the quality) and quantify the service levels and satisfaction of professional baseball teams through statistical analysis. We conduct questionnaire surveys with fans of each team, having them evaluate items related to team performance, the appeal of the team and players, fan service and community contribution, uniforms and logos, overall satisfaction, support loyalty (intentions to support the team, etc.), attendance loyalty (intentions to attend games at the stadium, etc.), and other related items. To date, the survey has been conducted for nine years (from 2009 to late January 2017). The condition for respondents is that they have attended at least one game at their supported team's home stadium within one year of the survey date. We have secured 100 to 120 respondents for each team annually, with a total of 13,372 respondents over the nine years. Figure 1 shows the causal model of service quality → overall satisfaction → support loyalty → attendance loyalty, constructed using a method called covariance structure analysis. The magnitude of the causal relationship is represented by the number near the arrow (standardized coefficient).
From these results (the magnitude of the standardized coefficients), we can see that "fan service and community contribution" has the most significant impact on overall satisfaction. This suggests that activities related to fan service and community contribution are effective for improving overall satisfaction.
Figure 2 shows the year-over-year changes in the overall satisfaction score for each team over the past nine years up to late January 2017 (the latent variable scores are standardized to a 100-point scale).
Let's examine the evaluations of notable teams from the most recent survey in late January 2017.
■ Hiroshima: In the late January 2017 survey, they ranked first in overall satisfaction (73.8) for the second time, the first being two years prior. In the 2016 season, they achieved their first league championship in 25 years, and their performance, including the "kamitteru" (god-like) description of Seiya Suzuki's play, drew considerable attention. Following their move to a new stadium in 2009, their services improved dramatically, and the emergence of young players led to a rapid increase in female fans known as "Carp Joshi" (Carp Girls), which became a hot topic. In recent years, the team's strength has also improved, resulting in a first-place ranking with a high level of overall satisfaction.
■ SoftBank: In the late January 2017 survey, they ranked second in overall satisfaction (70.8). Although they missed winning the league championship in the 2016 season, they maintained a high level of overall strength due to high ratings for the appeal of the team and players, as well as fan service and community contribution.
■ Nippon-Ham: In the late January 2017 survey, they ranked third in overall satisfaction (68.3). In the 2016 season, the team won the Japan Series and Shohei Ohtani had a stellar performance, leading to expectations of an even higher satisfaction rating. Compared to Hiroshima and SoftBank, their rating for "fan service and community contribution" was slightly lower. Although Nippon-Ham is a team with a high level of activity in fan service and community engagement, it is presumed that fan expectations have also risen, making it difficult to provide services that exceed them.
■ Chunichi: In the late January 2017 survey, their overall satisfaction score ranked 12th (43.4). In the 2016 season, the team also finished in last place, and the evaluation of the team and players' appeal has declined. Their rating for fan service and community contribution is also currently low. It is thought that the team's top management needs to present a clear vision and policy and implement drastic measures to improve team strength, player development policies, and fan service and community contribution.
As shown above, the satisfaction index model for professional baseball teams and the quantification of service quality and customer satisfaction provide various "insights" into a team's initiatives. It can be seen that teams achieving good results have a good balance of fan service and community contribution, team performance, and team/player appeal, and have a sense of unity between fans and the team. Such quantification leads to objective judgment and various actions—in other words, to "fact-based management."
Finally, "fact-based management" is effective not only for organizational activities like business or club activities but also for daily personal activities. For example, you can apply it to your own management by acquiring data and grasping the facts about the time required for household chores, the correct answer rate and time taken for practice problems, or your jogging times. I recommend cultivating an awareness of "fact-based management" in all situations.
References
Suzuki, Hideo. *Methods for Improving Customer Satisfaction—Acquiring Service Quality*. Tokyo: JUSE Press, 2010.
Suzuki, Hideo. *Exploring the Structure of Service Quality—Learning from the Case of Professional Baseball*. Tokyo: Japanese Standards Association, 2011.