Survey Confirms Crisis In Business Decision Making

Teradata Survey Confirms Crisis In Business Decision-Making

Third annual Teradata survey of senior business executives reveals continuing trends of executives making more complex decisions in less time, flooded by data, with leading companies moving toward enterprise analytics

Business decision-making is in crisis, according to senior executives of large corporations queried by Teradata, a division of NCR Corporation.

Three-quarters (75 percent) of the senior executives of top U.S. companies – 67 percent with annual revenues exceeding $1 billion – said that the number of daily decisions has increased over last year, slightly more than in the previous two studies. For three consecutive years, Teradata’s surveys have found that the increase in data is compounding, with 97 percent to 100 percent of respondents saying that data is increasing and well over half saying data is doubling or tripling over the previous year (57 percent in 2004). And greater than 50 percent said that decisions are more complex this year than last year.

The findings of the third annual decision-making survey of U.S. executives were released in Seattle today at the 18th Teradata PARTNERS User Group Conference and Expo , the world’s largest data warehousing and analytics event.

“These findings tell us why companies today are moving enterprise analytics to the top of their priority lists,” said Julian Beavis, Teradata Vice President for India , Southeast Asia , Australia and New Zealand . “The overwhelming majority of respondents, more than 70 percent, say that poor decision-making is a serious problem for business. The top casualties of poor decision-making are profits, company reputation, long-term growth, employee morale, productivity and revenue.”

This year, Teradata analysed results from two distinct groups, those who rate their decision-making capabilities as excellent – “decision champions” – and those who rate their capabilities as poor – the “decision-challenged.”

“Seventy-five percent of decision champions say that the right information is available when they need it and that they get information fast enough to help make decisions, compared to only 19 percent of the decision-challenged,” said Mr. Beavis. “Seventy percent of decision champions said that it is easy to navigate, understand and use available information, versus only six percent of the decision challenged.

“According to the analysis, a key difference between the two groups is that 75 percent of the decision champions say they have a centralised enterprise data warehouse, while only 19 percent decision-challenged do,” Mr. Beavis commented. “These sharp contrasts confirm what we’re seeing in the marketplace with our customers – that the best companies are making enterprise analytics a top priority. In addition, the majority of all respondents to our survey said that enterprise data warehousing would improve many facets of business, including long-term growth, profitability, productivity and customer service.”

Other studies conducted earlier this year by Teradata also show that the decision-making crisis is global, with European and Chinese executives expressing similar concerns.

** Nearly 80 percent of European executives surveyed consider the information that is available to them for making business decisions to be somewhat or not very accurate.

** Approximately three-quarters of U.S. executives and over half of their counterparts at European companies said that the lack of “right-time information” has cost their company money.

** Sixty-five percent of Chinese executives surveyed said that data has doubled or tripled compared to last year.

** Chinese executives are significantly more likely to say that the number of business decisions has increased in the past year (83 percent in China vs. 75 percent in the United States ).

** Although Chinese executives reported less time pressure on decisions than U.S. executives, 65 percent say that decisions are more complex this year than last.

The Teradata reports on these surveys are available at www.teradata.com .

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