Splunk Inc. announced new research in collaboration with Censuswide revealing that senior business decision makers in Europe are operating under increasing pressure, with more than half (53%) making a ‘critical’ business decision about once a day. Providing a Picture of Decision-Making: Surveying C-level executives and other top business decision makers, it was found that nearly all (90%) make business critical decisions in the same business day, while two in every three C-suite execs (67%) make those decisions in less than two hours. Cumulatively, businesses are making on average seven critical business decisions every week. Disconnect between Business Data and Business Decision Making: With such a relentless pace, business leaders are often forced to de-prioritise their use of data in decision-making, using it to make ‘rear view mirror’ diagnoses only and potentially missing forward-looking growth opportunities that could help spur European economic growth. Leaders understand that their organizations are investing resources to better harness the explosion of data they face, but this is not yet being used to bring data to every question, action and decision they need to make. Data as the Key to Opening Up Business Opportunity: Nearly all respondents (92%) could name a specific business area that they believe more accurate data could help to improve, with a third (33%) citing ‘customer growth’ as the biggest business opportunity that data could unlock for their business. Similarly, budget is no barrier, with less than 1 in 10 (8%) of the C-suite surveyed citing monetary investment as a barrier to investing in more or better data sources and software.