In a world deluged with data on everything and everyone, the biggest problem facing executives today is making a decision. According to a new study — The Decision Dilemma — by Oracle and Seth Stephens-Davidowitz of The New York Times, most people feel overwhelmed and underqualified to use data to make decisions, and it’s affecting their quality of life and business performance.
14,250 employees and managers in 17 countries took part in the study – including India, the USA, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and Brazil. Around 1,000 people were surveyed in India, Japan, the USA, the United Arab Emirates, France, Germany and Spain.
It has been found that in India, 90% of business leaders suffer from decision-making problems – regretting, feeling guilty or questioning a decision they made in the past year – and 99% believe that the right kind of decision-making intelligence is about success or Failure can decide the success of an organization. The global average is 85%. The situation has become so challenging that 85% of business leaders in India would rather have a robot make their decisions. The global average is 74%, in EMEA it is 50%.
Joey Fitts, vice president of analytics strategy at Oracle, says, “Organizations and individuals struggle with decision-making. It is a global critical issue. There are ways to reduce the burden of artificial intelligence and help reduce the burden so that decision making can be improved and business performance improved.”
There are many factors that contribute to decision distress. According to Fitts, this includes an overwhelming amount of data. In fact, 94% of Indian business leaders admit that the growing number of data sources has limited the success of their organizations. The global average is 89%.
Interestingly, Indian business leaders are concerned about the decision dilemma. In India, 99% of business leaders believe that the right kind of decision-making intelligence can determine the success of the business, versus the global average of 93%.
With so much stress involved in making decisions, will it be easier to get robots to make important decisions using artificial intelligence? And if something goes wrong, who takes over the criticism? Fitts points out that on the human side, a proposal is reviewed and then approved and therefore accountable. Using this responsibly is a great responsibility. For this to happen, it requires trust, visibility and an awareness of what decision is being made and who the final decision maker is.
It’s still early days, but as the pressure on executives mounts, you can expect AI to help them make decisions. Ultimately, however, responsibility lies with the individual. Whether that makes the decision-making process even worse is another question entirely.
