Data Quality

How many times have you had someone compliment you on the quality of your data? Is one of your business objectives to leverage the huge amounts of customer data that you collect to better understand your customer and the market? Whether your stored data is implemented with a sophisticated data engine to or it’s designed as a simple spreadsheet, every database has issues with the quality of its data.

Everyone knows the acronym GIGO (Garbage In/Garbage Out) when thinking about data quality. As bad as the reality of poor data quality has been, it's even worse in today's environment. Individuals who were intimately familiar with the data could sometimes tell when a data item or report displayed suspicious values. But how do you do that with new data analysis and machine learning techniques? I'll let one of my favorite web comics (xkcd) illustrate the concept.

When the data has been transformed and manipulated by sophisticated algorithms, it's impossible to tell if poor data quality has influenced the results. As Chuck Scoggins, VP of Distribution CRM for Hilton Hotels has said:

Our marketing effectiveness leads to our sales effectiveness, which leads to our service effectiveness. Data quality is key to the success of that. If you don't have quality data, that whole chain breaks down.

There has never been a more important time to focus on the quality of your data!

Download our data quality white paper.