87% of business leaders in India would prefer a robot to make their decisions: Study

A new study by Oracle and Seth Stephens-Davidowitz reveals 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 study of more than 14,000 employees and business leaders across 17 countries found that people are overwhelmed by the amount of data, which is damaging trust, making decisions much more complicated, and negatively impacting their quality of life. In India, 90% of business leaders have suffered from decision distress in the past year, and 87% of them would prefer a robot to make their decisions. Despite their frustrations with data, people know that without data, their decisions would be less accurate, less successful, and more prone to error.

Oracle offers embedded AI and Data Analytics capabilities to help business leaders manage their data effectively and increase operational efficiency across business processes to gain a competitive advantage.

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

According to the study, 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. Findings for India:

• 91 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, 90 percent are getting bombarded with more data from more sources than ever before.
• 92 percent say the volume of data is making decisions in their personal and professional lives much more complicated and 69 percent admit they face a decision dilemma – not knowing what decision to make – more than once every single day.
• 26 percent don’t know which data or sources to trust and 80 percent have given up on making a decision because the data was overwhelming.
• 88 percent of people say this inability to make decisions is having a negative impact on their quality of life. It is causing spikes in anxiety (38 percent), missed opportunities (40 percent), and unnecessary spending (42 percent).
• As a result, 98 percent have changed the way they make decisions over the last three years. 51 percent now only listen to sources they trust and 37 percent rely solely on gut feelings.

Decision distress is creating organizational inertia

Business leaders in India 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 eroding their confidence and ability to make timely decisions.

• 90 percent of business leaders have suffered from decision distress – regretting, feeling guilty about, or questioning a decision they made in the past year – and 99 percent believe having the right type of decision intelligence can make or break the success of an organization.
• 99 percent want help from data. In an ideal world, they want data to help them: make better decisions (60 percent), reduce risk (46 percent), make faster decisions (54 percent), make more money (45 percent), and plan for the unexpected (29 percent).
• In reality, 82 percent admit the sheer volume of data and their lack of trust in data has stopped them from making any decision at all and 94 percent believe the growing number of data sources has limited the success of their organizations.
• Managing different data sources has required additional resources to collect all the data (52 percent), made strategic decision making slower (52 percent), and introduced more opportunities for error (34 percent).
• Business leaders do not believe that the current approach to data and analytics is addressing these challenges. 88 percent say that the dashboards and charts they get do not always relate directly to the decisions they need to make and92 percent 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 percent), finance (98 percent), supply chain (99 percent), and customer experience (98 percent) decisions.

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. Study findings for India reveal:

• 86 percent of people say the headache of having to collect so much data and interpret it is too much for them to handle.
• This is particularly evident in the business world. 90 percent of business leaders say people often make decisions and then look for the data to justify them, 90 percent of employees believe businesses often put the highest paid person’s opinion ahead of data, and 11 percent feel that most decisions made in business are not rational.
• The situation is so challenging that 85 percent of people – and 87 percent 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, people know that without data their decisions would be less accurate 36 percent), less successful (38 percent), and more prone to error (40 percent).
• People also believe that an organization that uses technology to make data-driven decisions is more trustworthy (97 percent), will be more successful (97 percent), is a company they’re more likely to invest in (95 percent), partner with (94 percent), and work for (96 percent).

According to the latest release of IDC's Worldwide Big Data and Analytics (BDA) Spending Guide for Asia Pacific, spending on BDA solutions is expected to reach US$70.7 billion by 2026. Adopting such a data, analytics and AI driven approach to digital transformation is becoming table stakes for regional leaders as they look to boost revenues and create greater cost efficiencies in the uncertain economic climate.

The methodology used for this study involved surveying a global sample of 14,250 individuals in January 2023. The sample was selected to represent employees and business leaders from various titles, such as President, CEO, Chairperson, C-Level Executive, CFO, CTO, Director, Senior Manager, HR Manager, and other select leadership roles. The sample was obtained through consumer-matched data accessed via the global insights platform Prodege. In cases where possible, employee samples were calibrated to reflect the age and gender demographics of their respective nations' workforce.