In recent research by Oracle, a computer software company, and Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, a New York Times bestselling author, surveying 14,000 employees and business leaders across 17 countries, The Decision Dilemma, looks at how decisions are made.

Over the past three years, 74 percent of surveyed employees and business leaders across the world have seen every day decisions increase 10 times.

With the increase of data, more and more people are feeling overwhelmed and bombarded more than ever before.

The research surveyed people all across the business ladder from presidents, CEOs, and other select leadership roles to regular employees.

Employees and business leaders are saying that due to the volume of data, it has become harder to make decisions, with 59 percent admitting they face decision dilemma more than once every day.

The sheer amount of data has led to many employees and business leaders unsure which to trust, making those decisions even harder.

“People are drowning in data,” said Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, data scientist who worked on the research.

“This study highlights how the overwhelming amount of inputs a person gets in their average day—internet searches, news alerts, unsolicited comments from friends—frequently add up to more information than the brain is configured to handle.”

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Around 85 percent say that their inability to make decisions is having a negative impact on their quality of life due to anxiety, missed opportunities, unnecessary spending and decision distress.

Specifically for business leaders, 93 percent say that the right decision intelligence can “make or break the success of an organisation”.

“The best decision-making is done with a proper understanding of the relevant data. Finding a way to get a handle on the stream of data at their fingertips, to help businesses distinguish between the signal and the noise, is a crucial first step,” says Stephens-Davidowitz.

Due to the stress these decisions are causing for businesses, many companies are relying on technologies that are data driven to make decisions.

In specific, Oracle is seeing its AI and automation robot technologies used help customers improve efficiency and do more with less.

This comes at a time when the largest retail supermarkets in New Zealand are partnering with tech companies to improve efficiency and customer experience.

Seventy-nine percent of those surveyed says companies who use data-driven decisions are “more trustworthy”.

“As businesses expand to serve new customers in new ways, the number of data inputs they need to get the full picture expands too. Business leaders that make critical decisions about how to manage their companies ignore that data at their own risk,” says T.K. Anand, Executive Vice President at Oracle Analytics.

“The hesitancy, distrust, and lack of understanding of data shown by this study indicates that many people and organisations need to rethink their approach to data and decision making. What people really need is to be able to connect data to insight to decision to action.”