More than a third of business leaders don't use data for critical decisions

According to a new survey 36 percent of executives are not using data for business decisions and only 40 percent actually trust data.

The research from Talend shows 73 percent of executives would like to make the majority of their decisions based on data, while nine percent would go as far as using data to drive all their decisions.

"Our relationship with data is unhealthy. Only 40 percent of executives always trust the data they work with, and more than a third of executives are still making decisions based on gut instincts," says Christal Bemont, CEO of Talend. "The reality of data is falling well short of the industry's vision. Data management, which largely focuses on moving and storing data, doesn't take into account the overall health of data. Therefore, in trying to manage data, companies are in fact creating digital landfills of corporate information. This has to change. Our vision of data health is the future because it recognizes fundamental standards for quality and reliability are critical for corporate survival."

Among other findings, 39 percent of executives cite data availability as a challenge for them, and 36 percent claim that they don't have enough skilled resources to use data effectively.

Data quality throws up some issues too. Ensuring data quality remains a concern for 50 percent of executives, less than half that number report knowing whether their organization employs documented data quality standards of any kind. Plus more than a third of executives report that there are no standards for data quality at their company, an additional 19 percent don't know whether standards exist. 95 percent though agree there should be cross-industry standard metrics to assess the quality of all enterprise data.

The full report is available on the Talend site.

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