A new study by Oracle and New York Times bestselling author, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz entitled “The Decision Dilemma,” reveals that people are feeling overwhelmed and underqualified when it comes to using data to make decisions, which is negatively impacting both their quality of life and business performance.
This new study surveyed over 14,000 employees and business leaders in 17 countries, including 4,500 respondents from the Asia Pacific and Japan (JAPAC) region. The findings highlight that individuals are struggling to make decisions in their personal and professional lives, particularly as they are required to make more decisions than ever before.
Around 74% of the respondents felt that the number of decisions they make daily has increased 10 times over the past three years. As a result, 75% of them feel overwhelmed by the increased volume of data from multiple sources, leading to a decision-making dilemma for 61% of respondents at least once a day. Moreover, 33% of them do not know which data or sources to trust, leading to 71% of them giving up on making a decision because the data was overwhelming.
This inability to make decisions is causing negative impacts on the respondents’ way of life, leading to spikes in anxiety (37%), missed opportunities (37%), and unnecessary spending (35%). Consequently, 92% of the survey participants have changed their decision-making habits in the past three years, with 41% only listening to sources they trust, and 31% relying solely on gut feelings.
“This study highlights how the overwhelming amount of inputs a person gets in their average day — internet searches, news alerts, unsolicited comments from friends — frequently add up to more information than the brain is configured to handle. People are tempted to throw out the confusing, and sometimes conflicting, data and just do what feels right. But this can be a big mistake. It has been proven over and over again that our instincts can lead us astray and the best decision-making is done with a proper understanding of the relevant data. Finding a way to get a handle on the stream of data at their fingertips, to help businesses distinguish between the signal and the noise, is a crucial first step,” according to Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, data scientist and author of ‘Everybody Lies and Don’t Trust Your Gut.’
This global sample of 14,250 people was 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 consumer-matched 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.
Business leaders in the JAPAC region recognize the importance of data for their organization’s success but believe they lack the tools to make effective decisions, leading to a decline in confidence and decision-making ability. The same study also revealed that 87% of business leaders have experienced decision distress in the past year, and 90% believe that having the right type of decision intelligence can make or break the success of their organization. However, 73% of respondents admit that the sheer volume of data and lack of trust in data has prevented them from making any decision at all, and 92% believe that the growing number of data sources has limited their organization’s success. Despite the recognition of the importance of data, business leaders believe that the current approach to data and analytics is not addressing their challenges. They want data to help them make better decisions, reduce risk, make faster decisions, make more money, and plan for the unexpected. However, they face difficulties in managing different data sources and believe that the data and insights they receive are not directly related to the decisions they need to make. Nonetheless, business leaders in JAPAC believe that the right data and insights can help them make better decisions in HR, finance, supply chain, and customer experience.
“As businesses expand to serve customers in new ways, the number of data inputs required to get the full picture expands too. Business leaders that make critical decisions ignore that data at their own risk. The hesitancy, distrust, and lack of understanding of data shown by this study align with what we hear from customers rethinking their approach to decision-making. Our customers are looking for help to connect data to insight to decision to action. With our span of connected cloud capabilities, ranging from foundational data management, to augmented and applied analytics, to our suite of operational applications, we are uniquely positioned to meet this need and help our customers in the region achieve business success,” said Chris Chelliah, senior vice president, technology and customer strategy, Oracle Japan and Asia Pacific.