INTELLIGENT TECHNOLOGY
Greater business complexities skyrocket decision overload
Pleo’ s latest report, The Power of Better Business Decisions, reveals a pivotal moment for business decision-making. Over the past 12 months, UK companies have faced market volatility, AI adoption, hiring freezes and budget squeezes. Against this backdrop, 77 % of UK business leaders report making more highlevel decisions than a year ago, with three in 10 seeing a significant increase. The top drivers include rising business complexity( 26 %), heightened business ambitions and expectations( 18 %), more economic or business pressures( 11 %) and increasing demand for environmentally responsible practices( 11 %).
Rising pressure, falling confidence
In today’ s turbulent climate, every choice can feel like a make-or-break moment. Leaders say the strain translates into stress( 47 %), sleepless nights( 36 %) and anxiety( 35 %). Over half( 55 %) of UK business decision-makers admit to experiencing decision paralysis in the past year, with 57 % finding the sheer number of decisions overwhelming.
Those with a larger volume of high-level decision-making carry the heaviest burden. In the past 12 months, 60 % of UK leaders facing more high-level decisions reported decision paralysis, compared with 43 % of those facing the same or fewer decisions. Tooling adds further to the burden, with 79 % of UK respondents using more than 20 digital tools reporting decision freezes( vs 49 % of those who use one to five tools).
Given so many high-level decisions centre around spending, CFOs and finance leaders are heavily leaned upon for critical decision-making. Globally, their role in highlevel choices has grown more than any other senior leader. Yet UK CFOs are the least confident amongst senior leaders to make business decisions, with 58 % of their decisions made without full confidence.
Søren Westh Lonning, Chief Financial Officer at Pleo, said:“ Businesses find themselves in a perfect storm right now. With business complexities and business ambitions both on the rise, financial minds are seeing their confidence levels fall and their stress levels rise. The result is that their decision-making is often uninformed, underconfident or, worse still, simply non-existent.
“ Pleo has always been seen as a strategic finance partner to businesses. Ten years ago, this looked a lot like enabling trust
WITH BUSINESS COMPLEXITIES AND BUSINESS AMBITIONS BOTH ON THE RISE, FINANCIAL MINDS ARE SEEING THEIR CONFIDENCE LEVELS FALL AND THEIR STRESS LEVELS RISE.
and control. But today it has evolved into something else – confidence. We champion better decisions, enabling companies to act on foresight, not hindsight.
“ As a partner to more than 40,000 European businesses, we’ ve seen firsthand the challenges of the past five years. And through this shared understanding, we’ ve innovated and expanded our offering – from small( expenses) to big( spend management, treasury function, cash flow tools and multi-entity) to ensure our customers stay one step ahead. Our full suite comes together to give finance leaders the visibility to make decisions faster and with greater certainty, transforming them into true value accelerators – delivering growth, stability and profit.”
Finance leaders’ ability to make timely, confident decisions is frequently undermined by poor-quality tools and data. More than half( 51 %) of UK CFOs say their leaders lack the tools or technology to extract the insights they need, while 58 % report that limited access to contextual information weakens decision confidence, and 51 % say it reduces their ability to ensure investments create opportunity rather than risk. x
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