Author
Jacky Pfennig, Senior Research Manager at AICPA and CIMA
Date published
September 11, 2025
Categories
In today’s high-stakes business environment, making smart decisions is critical to building agile, efficient organisations that can thrive amid dynamic market conditions.
Yet, according to McKinsey, only 57% of C-level executives and senior managers believe their organisations consistently make high-quality decisions. When it comes to speed, just 48% agree their organisations make decisions quickly, and only 37% say they make decisions that are both fast and effective.
For organisations, ineffective decision-making has serious implications. McKinsey reports that managers spend an average of 37% of their time making decisions – over half of which is spent ineffectively, while Gartner estimates that poor decision-making can erode up to 3% of profits, undermining profitability, value creation, and overall performance.
We now have access to more data than ever before, so why do most organisations still struggle to use it effectively? Clearly, the challenge isn’t data availability; it’s turning that data into timely, high-quality insights that drive strategic decision-making.
Business intelligence & analytics: the current state of play in management accounting
Our latest report, How management accountants use business intelligence & analytics: The road to improved decision-making – part of AICPA and CIMA’s Contemporary Issues in Management Accounting Series – shows that the adoption of business intelligence & analytics (BI&A) tools among management accountants has grown significantly, reflecting their expanding role in organisational decision-making.
Around 60% of management accountants surveyed report extensive use of BI&A tools within their organisations, primarily to support operational decision-making in areas such as budgeting, performance evaluation, and revenue planning. However, there is a clear desire to go further, with most respondents expressing interest in expanding their use of predictive and prescriptive analytics to support strategic decision-making, including in long-term planning, scenario modelling, and risk management. This aspiration aligns with findings from our Future of Finance 2.0 whitepaper, where nearly half of global respondents (49%) identified advanced analytics as a key driver of organisational transformation.
Interestingly, the majority of respondents still rely on traditional and familiar tools. Fewer than 40% of respondents report using advanced platforms like Microsoft Power BI, with most continuing to depend on Microsoft Excel and its more sophisticated features, such as Power Query. When it comes to data visualisation, data tables and basic graphs remain the norm, despite growing interest in adopting more advanced, interactive dashboards and non-financial data visualisation.
From scorekeepers to business partners: bridging the BI&A gap
Despite encouraging signs of adoption, our findings reveal a gap between the current use of BI&A and its potential to elevate management accountants into strategic business partners – professionals who help their organisations make decisions that are not only faster and more effective, but also more resilient and aligned with long-term business goals.
When management accountants and their organisations are data-driven, the quality of information, actions, and decisions improves significantly:
- Information becomes more accurate, timely, and can even be delivered in real-time – enabling faster responses to seize new opportunities and address challenges early on.
- Actions are better informed through enhanced knowledge sharing, the ability to customise insights to specific business needs, and a stronger foundation for innovation – enabling more agile, targeted, and forward-looking decisions.
- Decisions are higher in quality and more likely to be successfully implemented – driving tangible improvements and measurable impact across the organisation.
Harnessing the full power of BI&A means not only investing in technology, but also in people, culture, and capability – empowering management accountants to lead with insight and deliver strategic value. Success depends on several key enablers:
- Strategic alignment with organisational goals: BI&A efforts must be clearly linked to the organisation’s strategic goals and priorities. Management accountants need to understand what insights are needed and why they matter to tailor BI&A outputs that directly support decision-making and align with long-term business objectives.
- Data quality and mature data management systems: Having reliable, consistent, and easily accessible real-time data is essential for informed decision-making. Without it, even the most advanced tools fall short of delivering relevant, actionable business insights.
- Continuous learning and capability development: As technologies evolve, so too must the skills of management accountants. Technical analytics skills must be paired with strong business acumen for value creation and a continuous learning mindset. Organisations play a critical role by providing the time, training, and support needed to build BI&A skills and capabilities.
- A data-driven culture: Culture is a powerful enabler for technology adoption and long-term innovation. When organisations foster a collective responsibility for data quality and accessibility, and promote its role in achieving business objectives, they create an environment where management accountants feel empowered to adopt BI&A and maximise its value.
- Automation with human insight: While automation is an important enabler of BI&A, technology alone does not create value. Algorithms and artificial intelligence can help streamline structured, repetitive tasks, but they cannot replace the tacit knowledge, contextual understanding, creativity, and critical thinking skills that humans bring. Organisations must ensure that human insight remains central to the decision-making process and avoid over-reliance on automated outputs without scrutiny.
As organisations strive to make smarter, faster decisions, management accountants are uniquely positioned to lead the way, moving from being scorekeepers to becoming strategic business partners, that drive value creation. However, this shift requires more than access to data; it demands a commitment to strategic alignment, continuous learning, and a supportive culture – both from an individual and organisational perspective.
