Thursday 11^th September, 2014

According to a report by PwC and the Economist, leaders are taking major strategic decisions about the future of their businesses based on their gut instinct and experience in preference to the use of data and analytics. The ‘Guts & Gigabytes’ report is based on a survey of over 1,100 senior executives worldwide, across a range of industries and public, private and family-owned businesses.

It shows that senior business leaders in the UK tend to use their intuition and experience, as well as the advice and experience of others in their companies, over and above data and analytics.

When asked about how they make major decisions, they ranked data and analytics as the third most important factor (23%) behind their own intuition and experience (41%) and the experience of others (31%).

83% of senior executives from the UK report that their big decision-making has improved in the past two years - with 32% of this group saying there has been a significant improvement. For 40% of businesses, the use of internal and external data and analytics is the aspect of big decision-making that has changed the most.

Yann Bonduelle, PwC consulting data analytics partner, said:  

"Business leaders have long used their own tried and trusted intuition alongside more scientific and financial factors to make decisions and this has served them well in the past.  As data become more pervasive, algorithms become more accurate and visualisation more intuitive, business leaders are realising they can make better decisions through using data and analytics more systematically."

British executives are feeling positive about the future of their businesses, with 24% choosing growing the existing business as the most important decision they expect to make in the next year and an additional 21% picking entering a new industry or starting a brand new business.

More than half (52%) of UK business leaders expect to make big decisions to collaborate with their competitors in the next year – compared with 36% as a global average.

Despite a generally positive attitude towards the use of data and analytics, many UK business leaders remain concerned about data quality and information overload. 41% say they are concerned about quality, accuracy and completeness of data and 41% find it difficult to access useful data.  

British executives reveal greater scepticism about the value of data analysis, compared with their overseas counterparts.

Finally, business leaders share a recognition that the leaders of the future need to be familiar with data analysis, with 81% of UK executives calling it a prerequisite for senior management.