TALKING

As businesses expand to serve new customers in new ways , the number of data inputs they need to get the full picture expands too .

• 74 % of employees believing businesses often put the highest paid person ' s opinion ahead of data .

• 24 % think that most decisions made in business are not rational .

The study finds this situation is so challenging that 64 % of respondents – and 70 % of business leaders – would prefer for all these difficulties to just go away and to have a robot make their decisions .

Managing different data sources has required additional resources to collect all the data ( 40 %), made strategic decision making slower ( 36 %) and introduced more opportunities for error ( 26 %).

Nor , the study says , do business leaders believe that the current approach to data and analytics is addressing these challenges , with 77 % saying the dashboards and charts they get do not always relate directly to the decisions they need to make and 72 % believing most data available is only truly helpful for IT professionals or data scientists .

The study does show business leaders believe the right data and insights can help them make better HR ( 94 %), finance ( 94 %) supply chain ( 94 %) and customer experience ( 93 %) decisions .

But 70 % said the headache of having to collect so much data and interpret it is too much for them to handle .

Other findings relevant to business included :

• 78 % of business leaders saying people often make decisions and then looked for the data to justify them .

Despite their frustrations with data in their personal and professional worlds , respondents acknowledged that without data their decisions would be less accurate ( 44 %), less successful ( 27 %) and more prone to error ( 39 %).

Respondents also believed that an organization that uses technology to make data-driven decisions is more trustworthy ( 79 %), will be more successful ( 79 %), is a company they ' re more likely to invest in ( 76 %), partner with ( 7 %) and work for ( 78 %).

“ As businesses expand to serve new customers in new ways , the number of data inputs they need to get the full picture expands too . Business leaders that make critical decisions about how to manage their companies ignore that data at their own risk ," said T . K . Anand , Executive Vice President , Oracle Analytics .

" The hesitancy , distrust and lack of understanding of data shown by this study indicates that many people and organizations need to rethink their approach to data and decision making . What people really need is to be able to connect data to insight to decision to action .”

The study took a global sample of 14,250 people surveyed in January 2023 .

In each country , the sample represented employees and business leaders , including titles such as president , CEO , chairperson , C-level executive , CFO , CTO , director , senior manager , HR manager and other select leadership roles , confirmed by consumermatched data accessed via the global insights platform Prodege .

Employee samples were calibrated , where possible , to reflect the age and gender demographics of the nation ' s workforce .

DKC Analytics conducted and analyzed the survey with a sample procured using the Pollfish survey delivery platform , which delivers online surveys globally through mobile apps and the mobile web along with the desktop web .

No post-stratification has been applied to the results . p

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