Internet becomes chief source of info for corporate executives

The Internet is the most valuable resource for executives for gathering business information, outstripping at-work contacts, personal networks and trade publications, according to a survey of corporate executives released Thursday by Forbes Insights and Google.

In fact, 74 percent of respondents rated the Internet as very valuable — 5 on a 5-point scale — according to the survey of 354 C-suite and other top executives.

During work hours, 70 percent of executives prefer to read “traditional print media” online rather than in print (30 percent), and 69 pecent prefer to access “traditional broadcast media” online rather than over the air.

More than half of the C-suite respondents (53 percent) said they prefer to locate information for decision-making themselves, rather than start the process and forward it to others to complete (26 percent) or assign others to gather it (21 percent). Among non-C-level executives, 40 percent said they prefer to do it themselves.

Search engines are the most valuable source for locating business information; 63 percent of executives rated them as “very valuable.” More interesting is the number of searches executives conduct daily. Overall, 60 percent of executives conduct six or more work-related searches each day, and 19 percent conduct 20 or more.

Among executives under age 40, 74 percent conduct six or more searches, and 39 percent conduct 20 or more work-related searches each day.

Read more here.