Great question and one that can be simply put with the following; data is absolutely fundamental to any business. Data is essentially power in business and is no surprise why companies will spend billions on acquiring it. If there is no data that can you ever actually make a business decision? Yes, they’re people who go by impulse and take a more riskier approach to these things but even then there is some application of data be that quantitive or qualitative. Nevertheless, it’ll always be the business that takes decision which the data supports that’ll be lucrative and ahead of the game.
There really is no alternative answer than my earlier opening line, that data is absolutely fundamental to a business without which businesses would no longer operate.