61% of Business Leaders in Brazil Would Prefer a Robot to Make Their Decisions

Publicity

People feel overwhelmed and under qualified to use data to make decisions and this is hurting their quality of life and business performance, according to a new study — The Decision Dilemma — by Oracle and Seth Stephens Davidowitz, New York Times bestselling author. The study of more than 14,000 employees and business leaders across 17 countries, including 1,500 Latin American leaders (Brazil, Mexico and Colombia), found that people are struggling to make decisions in their personal and professional lives at a time when they are being forced to make more decisions than ever before.

The number of decisions we are making is multiplying and more data is not helping

500 interviewed leaders in Brazil highlighted they feel overwhelmed by the amount of data and this is damaging trust, making decisions much more complicated, and negatively impacting their quality of life

89% of people say the number of decisions they make every day has increased 10x over the last three years and as they try to make these decisions

85% are getting bombarded with more data from more sources than ever before

80% say the volume of data is making decisions in their personal and professional lives much more complicated

89% admit they face a decision dilemma — not knowing what decision to make — more than once every single day

39% don’t know which data or sources to trust

97% have changed the way they make decisions over the last three years

73% have given up on making a decision because the data was overwhelming

49% now only listen to sources they trust

88% of people say this inability to make decisions is having a negative impact on their quality of life. It is causing spikes in anxiety (54%), missed opportunities (37%), and unnecessary spending (31%)

Decision distress is creating organizational inertia

Business leaders want data to help and know it is critical to the success of their organizations, but don’t believe they have the tools to be successful which is ero ding their confidence and ability to make timely decisions.

– 89% of business leaders have suffered from decision distress — regretting, feeling guilty about, or questioning a decision they made in the past year

– 99% believe having the right type of decision intelligence can make or break the success of an organization

– 87% believe the growing number of data sources has limited the success of their organizations

– 99% want help from data. In an ideal world, they want data to help them: make better decisions (63%), reduce risk (68%), make faster decisions (54%), accelerate the business (50%), and plan for the unexpected (37%)

– Managing different data sources has required: additional resources to collect all the data (43%), made strategic decision making slower (50%), and introduced more opportunities for error (23%)

– Business leaders do not believe that the current approach to data and analytics is addressing these challenges. 69% say that the dashboards and charts they get do not always relate directly to the decisions they need to make and 71% believe most data available is only truly helpful for IT professionals or data scientists

– They believe the right data and insights can help them make better HR (98%), finance (98%), supply chain (98%), and customer experience (98%) decisions

Data needs to be relevant to the decisions people make or they will give up on it

– 54% say the headache of having to collect so much data and interpret it is too much for them to handle

– 64% of business leaders would prefer for all these difficulties to just go away and to have a robot make their decisions

This is particularly evident in the business world. 76% of business leaders say people often make decisions and then look for the data to justify them. Despite their frustrations with data in their personal and professional worlds, people know that without data their decisions would be less accurate (50%), less successful (31%), and more prone to error (52%). People also believe that an organization that uses technology to make data-driven decisions is more trustworthy (92%), will be more successful (90%), is a company they’re more likely to invest in (89%), partner with (91%), and work for (90%).

Our complex relationship with data and decision making is creating a dilema

– 73% of people admit they have given up on making a decision because the data was too overwhelming

– 62% of people admit they face a decision dilemma – not knowing what decision to make — more than once every single day

“People are drowning in data,” said Seth Stephens Davidowitz, data scientist and author of Everybody Lies and Don’t Trust Your Gut. “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.”

Without the right approach to data management and analytics businesses will fail

Business leaders know that without data their decisions would be less accurate (51%), less successful (32%), and more prone to error (49%)

Business leaders need a new approach to solve the decision dilemma

**For the purpose of the survey, Decision Intelligence was defined as “the ability to leverage data and technology to understand how decisions are made, evaluated, managed, and how they can be improved”

As business expand, the number of data inputs expands too. “Business leaders that make critical and strategical decisions for their company, as the study indicates, they hesitate and lack of understanding of data shown, so they need to rethink their approach to data and decision making. 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.”, said Alexandre Maioral, President of Oracle in Brazil.

Methodology

This global sample of 14,250 people were 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. DKC Analytics conducted and analyzed this 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.