How Cloud Technology Can Help Mitigate Decision Distress

A new study by Oracle, which surveyed 14,000 employees and business leaders across 17 countries, found that people are struggling to make decisions in their personal and professional lives.

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

Almost three quarters (74 percent) 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, 78 percent are getting bombarded with more data from more sources than ever before. In addition, 70 percent have given up on making a decision because the data was overwhelming.

Business Leaders are Facing Decision Distress

85 percent of business leaders have suffered from decision distress – regretting, feeling guilty about, or questioning a decision they made in the past year. The situation is so challenging that 70 percent of business leaders would prefer for all these difficulties to just go away and to have a robot make their decisions.

“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,” says Stephens-Davidowitz. 

The fact of the matter is business leaders and employees recognize the importance of data-driven decisions but require better tools and resources to effectively utilize it. 

Leveraging Data for Better, Faster Decisions

Nearly all business leaders (97 percent) want help from data and 93 percent believe having the right type of decision intelligence can make or break the success of an organization.

In an ideal world, they want data to help them: make better decisions (44 percent); reduce risk (41 percent); make faster decisions (39 percent); make more money (37 percent); plan for the unexpected (29 percent).

The crux of this issue is that leaders are struggling to translate this flood of insights into decisive action.

“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,” says Stephens-Davidowitz.

As businesses expand to serve new customers in new ways, the volume of data inputs they need will expand too. This requires business leaders to fundamentally rethink their approach to decision-making and adopt innovative strategies to manage and analyze data.

Technology is Here to Help

Better technology can help business leaders process relevant information much faster. For example, a shared data model - where all your applications run on a single shared source of data - enables updates in HR or supply chain applications to automatically cross over into finance and vice versa. This integrated view of the business helps leaders to create timely reports, act quickly on opportunities, investigate red flags, and focus on the right areas and most profitable opportunities. Similarly, a cloud analytics platform can help businesses with numerous disparate applications harmonize their data and create more insights from disconnected data sources.

With the right technology, business leaders can gain more value from their data to increase productivity, reduce costs, uncover growth opportunities, and drive new revenue streams.

The survey revealed that people believe that an organization that uses technology to make data-driven decisions is more trustworthy (79 percent) and will be more successful (79 percent).

When thinking about investing time and money with a company, people also believe an organization that uses technology to make data-driven decisions is a company they’re more likely to: invest in (76 percent); partner with (77 percent); and work for (78 percent).

Ultimately, the companies that can wrap their arms around the data will be more successful and better at responding to market changes. Creating a single source of truth and harmonizing data in the cloud could be the easiest decision business leaders need to make.

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

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