The study found that a typical European employee wastes an average of 67 minutes every day looking for company information, equivalent to 15.9 per cent of the working day.

According to the research, managers are also frustrated and demotivated by limited access to data with 54 per cent of respondents claiming lack of accurate, consistent and complete information as the biggest barrier to making sound decisions. As a result they have to rely too much on experience rather than accurate information to make decisions, which 63 per cent of respondents said was key to making effective choices.

As a result of inaccurate information access and availability, European businesses risk being left behind by more competitive companies and regions due to slow decision making.

A huge 92 per cent feel that businesses need to move faster than ever to be successful and over four fifths believe that their own company needs to improve the speed of decision making.

Gerry Cohen, chief executive of Information Builders, says: ‘The fact that important decisions are being made every day based on inconsistent, inaccurate and untimely data is alarming for European business. It is also worrying that employees are wasting an excessive amount of their working week looking for information rather than doing their job.

‘Organisations must look at technologies that can overcome the barriers to the way information is accessed, distributed and updated to ensure users across the enterprise can make good, quick decisions that have a positive impact on the performance of their company.’