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One in four CxO:s make their business decisions based on gut feelings. In a world increasingly reliant on data and the advantages it can bring, it’s the time to face the facts when it comes to making decisions that will decide the destiny of your business.
It’s well known that leading and innovative sports teams, historically known to make decisions based on the experience of the few, have turned to facts n’ stats. In what is a cut-throat competitive business arena, data-driven decisions are making the difference between winners and losers.
At Dun & Bradstreet we’ve been promoting the smart use of data for a long time. In fact, since the 1960s we’ve provided concise targeted data for our customers. Although methods have changed, we still believe in data to help drive businesses forward. In our most recent report, a call-to-arms to management, Management: Step up. The seven steps to a data-driven organization that top management must take, we look at what managers are, and are not doing to best take advantage of what many perceive to be a digital revolution. We have assessed the current situation and have made recommendations to managers whichever stage of data-driven decision making they may be at. We have surveyed over 300 CxO:s from 10 European markets revealing some worrying results when it comes to current trust in data and over-reliance on intuition or ‘gut feeling’.
The evidence in the report shows that “one in four clearly state that they make their decisions based on gut feelings”, also “that almost one in two agreed that in 2030, we will laugh about the low level of data analytics back in 2019.” So, we can see that confusion exists. There are CxO:s who understand that there is radical underuse of effective or smart data yet at the same time almost twenty-five percent of those surveyed are not making data-driven decisions.
One of the most telling statements from the report was that assertion that:
“In 2030, winning in our market will be about using data better than anyone else”
Again, a confident statement about how the future might look but when we look at the allocation investment in data far too little is reaching the big three when it comes to driving performance. 
Sales, R&D and Marketing are all key performance drivers but receiving too little investment.
What we are seeing time and time again is that companies can see a future defined by data, they can see the writing on the wall, but they do not yet appreciate that the future has arrived and action needs to be taken sooner rather than later.