Poor decision support IT costs European businesses millions

Its study found that a lack of decision support systems is costing companies in Europe millions of euros a year in lost productivity and reduced competitiveness. In fact it finds European employees wasting 15.9% of their time just looking for information – equating to £5.39 million a year wasted for a manufacturer with 1,000 staff on an average of £34,000 per year. The study also finds 54% of respondents claiming lack of accurate, consistent and complete information as the biggest barrier to making good decisions. Currently, they have to rely too much on experience, rather than good information to make decisions. Information Builders CEO Gerry Cohen says: “The fact that important decisions are being made every day based on inconsistent, inaccurate and untimely data is alarming for European organisations. It is also worrying that employees are wasting an excessive amount of their working week looking for information, rather than doing their job. “Organisations across Europe must look at systems and technologies that can overcome the barriers to the way information is accessed, distributed and updated to ensure users across the enterprise and third parties can make good, quick decisions that have a positive impact on the performance of their enterprises.” Respondents broadly agree: the study shows that they believe easy access to information (55%), easy to use search and retrieval tools (40%) and timely reports (25%) would help them be more productive. As a result of poor information access and availability, European organisations risk being left behind by more competitive companies and regions due to slow decision making. Indeed, 77% of respondents believe that organisations that make quick decisions are more successful and 92% felt that businesses need to move faster than ever to be successful. However, 86% believe that their organisation needs to improve the speed of decision-making, while having better information is seen as the key ingredient by 72% of respondents in achieving this goal.