Australian orgs held back by current pace of decision making - research

Alteryx, the Analytics Cloud Platform company, released independent research titled 'The Decision-Making Technologies Shaping the Future of the Enterprise', revealing the current state of decision-making across Australia enterprises.

While confidence and accuracy were cited as playing an exceptionally important role in decision-making, the new study highlighted multiple practices stalling the accurate and timely decision intelligence required to thrive.

Heidi Badgery, Managing Director of ANZ at Alteryx, says, "While many Australian enterprise leaders recognise that data plays a crucial role in making informed decisions, a significant gap remains between those who reap the benefits of data analytics and those organisations at the start of their analytic journey.

"Faced with a constant barrage of macroeconomic headwinds, our recent research underlines the need for business leaders across Australia to unlock the business potential of data and empower every decision-maker with accessible analytics to deliver real-time data-driven decision intelligence required to drive efficiencies, optimise customer experiences and deliver growth."

Challenging economic times force business leaders to deliver the right answers at unimaginable speeds, but the current pace of decision-making is holding businesses back, the research finds. This is making it difficult for businesses to make crucial decisions with the speed and confidence required.

Overall, 59% of respondents felt that decisions were generally quick and efficient, but the reported times indicated otherwise. On average, operational decisions took two days, tactical decisions seven days, and strategic decisions took 20 days.

The research found, 60% of organisations responded that analytics, business intelligence, and artificial intelligence impact decisions making in their organisation, yet only 21% reported using advanced decision intelligence technology and analytical tools to currently automate processes and help to make these decisions.

Sharing data has clear benefits for making intelligent decisions at scale, but with leaders hesitant to make it available, time-to-insight and the ability to react and adapt has stalled. 76% of enterprise leaders agreed access to data improves their own decision-making, and the majority indicated advanced technologies such as analytics, business intelligence, and artificial intelligence help deliver faster decisions.

Yet, 61% did not think employees who make decisions for the organisation should have access to data for decision-making, and 20% felt data should be in the hands of senior leadership alone. Findings revealed cultures of data gatekeeping negatively affecting respondents ability to collect and analyse data and communicate insights across the business.

Optimised decision-making requires real-time insights: The future of decision-making is automation, but machines will not be making decisions alone. 97% of respondents indicated that they can imagine a future in which all decisions in their organisation are automated, the researchers state. On average, organisations believed that decision-making will be fully automated in more than 10 years, with many believing that it will take longer.

Only 2% of respondents said that they think the future of decision-making will be machine-controlled, meaning that machines will analyse, produce insights, and make decisions without any human input. 64% of those surveyed believed that the future of decision-making will be a combination of human and machine, the research states.

Alan Jacobson, Chief Data & Analytics Officer at Alteryx, says, "Its essential for decision-makers to deliver insights quickly and confidently. Isolated pockets of data and analytics access are currently hindering many organisations ability to gain clarity in a landscape of uncertainty.

"At Alteryx, we've long believed that data and analytically optimised decision-making deliver better, faster, more efficient and more confident intelligence all unlocking the potential to capitalise on insights needed to design better experiences."