The research is titled the Decision Dilemma, and was conducted across more than 14,000 employees and business leaders from 17 countries, including a thousand Australians. Despite the mantra of this decade exhorting us to be data-driven leaders, the reality turns out that almost everybody is suffering from data overload and the end result is an inability to make effective decision making.

Key findings from the report indicate 99% of people want decision-making help from data, yet the explosion of data is working against them.

• 82% of Australians are so overwhelmed by data they simply give up on decision making
• 95% of business leaders have suffered from decision distress - regretting, feeling guilty about, or questioning a decision they made in the past year
• 82% admit the sheer volume of data and their lack of trust in data has stopped them from making any decision at all
• 95% have changed the way they make decisions over the last three years

“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.”

Australians recognise the significance of data in making accurate and reliable decisions and understand that decisions shouldn’t be made based on gut feeling alone (95%). However, 93% of Australians also believe the volume of data has made decision-making more complex in both their personal and professional lives – the highest in the world. With the ever-increasing volume of data, Australians are now confronted with a decision-making crisis, unsure whether to rely on their intuition or the data in front of them. As a result, many Australians are simply avoiding making decisions altogether. Interestingly, this number was higher for business leaders (89%) than employees (75%).

“Australia understands that data is instrumental to making accurate and reliable decisions. However, today, business leaders and employees are faced with an unprecedented volume of data, leaving many feeling overwhelmed and stripping them of confidence in decision-making,” said Oracle ANZ regional MD Stephen Bovis. “Australians are famous for our laissez-faire, “she’ll be right” attitude. This study shows that perhaps, this attitude boils down to a lack of confidence in decision-making capabilities with many Aussies choosing to avoid making a decision altogether.”

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

People are overwhelmed by the amount of data and this is damaging trust, making decisions much more complicated, and negatively impacting their quality of life.

• 88% of Australians 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, 90% are getting bombarded with more data from more sources than ever before.
• Australians are the most likely (93%), compared to other global cohorts (86%) to say the volume of data is making decisions in their personal and professional lives much more complicated and 66% admit they face a decision dilemma – not knowing what decision to make – more than once every single day.
• 41% don’t know which data or sources to trust and 82% have given up on making a decision because the data was overwhelming - the highest globally - which is perhaps the cause for Australia’s famous laissez-faire, “she’ll be right” attitude
• More than any other country, 93% of Aussies say this inability to make decisions is having a negative impact on their quality of life. It is causing spikes in anxiety (40%), missed opportunities (39%), and unnecessary spending (34%).
• As a result, 95% have changed the way they make decisions over the last three years. 44% now only listen to sources they trust and 26% rely solely on gut feelings, which is less than the global average (26%), showing Australians recognise the significance of data in making accurate and reliable decisions

Decision distress is creating organisational inertia

Business leaders want data to help and know it is critical to the success of their organisations but do not believe they have the tools to be successful, eroding their confidence and ability to make timely decisions.

• Australian business leaders suffer from decision distress more than any other nation (95%) – regretting, feeling guilty about, or questioning a decision they made in the past year – and 99% believe having the right type of decision intelligence can make or break the success of an organisation.
• Almost all respondents (99%) want help from data. In an ideal world, they want data to help them: make better decisions (34%), reduce risk (35%), make faster decisions (34%), make more money (38%), and plan for the unexpected (32%).
• In reality, 89% of Australian business leaders admit the sheer volume of data and their lack of trust in data has stopped them from making any decision at all and 99% believe the growing number of data sources has limited the success of their organisations.
• Managing different data sources has required additional resources to collect all the data (68%) for Australian leaders made strategic decision-making slower (37%), and introduced more opportunities for error (32%).
• Business leaders do not believe that the current approach to data and analytics is addressing these challenges. 89% say that the dashboards and charts they get do not always relate directly to the decisions they need to make and 90% believe most data available is only truly helpful for IT professionals or data scientists.
• Business leaders know this needs to change. They believe the right data and insights can help them make better HR (99%), finance (99%), supply chain (99%), and customer experience (98%) decisions. Australian business leaders clearly understand the impact the right data can have on their businesses.

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

Collecting and interpreting data has driven people to their breaking point at a time when the stakes are incredibly high for business leaders.

• 86% of people say the headache of having to collect and interpret so much data is too much for them to handle.
• This is particularly evident in the business world. 90% of Australian business leaders say people often make decisions and then look for the data to justify them, while 76% of employees believe businesses often put the highest-paid person’s opinion ahead of data, and 14% feel that most decisions made in business are not rational.
• The situation is so challenging that 81% of people – and 64% of business leaders - would prefer for all these difficulties to just go away and to have a robot make their decisions.
• Despite their frustrations with data in their personal and professional worlds, Australians recognise, more than any other country, that without data their decisions would be less accurate (55%), less successful (25%), and more prone to error (49%).
• People also believe that an organisation that uses technology to make data-driven decisions is more trustworthy (88%), will be more successful (85%), is a company they’re more likely to invest in (85%), partner with (85%), and work for (85%).

“Australia’s business leaders have a sophisticated view of data, with only a few preferring to make decisions based on gut feel alone,” Bovis said. “But while they recognise the value, they do need help in making the data work for them. This study's hesitancy, distrust, and lack of understanding of data indicate that many people and organisations 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. 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 providing insights for more confident decision-making and making their lives easier.”

"Our doctors and nurses welcome every advantage in making the best decisions in critical moments - such as the end of a long shift - and this is where data insights can add value to real-world patient outcomes,” said Royal Flying Doctor Service CIO Ryan Klose. “But without the right tools, an organisation’s ability to use data for better decision-making is severely hampered. There are real people at the end of all the decisions we make, so in this way, I.T. isn’t just delivering technology outcomes, we’re delivering real-world patient outcomes.”

Methodology

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.

DKC Analytics conducted and analysed 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.