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The cost of bad data quality is high. According to the DAMA Data Management Body of Knowledge, companies spend between 10-30% of their revenue dealing with data quality issues. So, getting it right can save you a lot of money.

The issues that could impact you are broad too, with some more immediate and direct than others. For example, having poor data can quickly lead to a loss of sales. If your organisation doesn’t have a customer relationship management (CRM) system with up-to-date, quality data, then you will miss out on sales opportunities. Calling the wrong numbers and emailing the wrong people adds up to a lot of time wasted too.

A less immediate effect of poor-quality data is the deterioration of trust and decision-making within your organisation. If the quality of your dataset is poor, it is difficult for users to trust it. If, for example, you have marketing data with lots of duplicate and inaccurate information, your marketing teams won’t be able to trust the data or the insights it is providing. This is backed up by research that suggests that 41% of marketing analysts don’t trust their datasets.

The knock-on effect of this is worse. Decision-makers throughout your organisation will be in a dilemma. They either make choices based on gut instinct (which you’re trying to avoid by using data and BI), or they make bad choices based on bad data. Either way, you shouldn’t be crossing your fingers and hoping for the best.

Instead, you should be using a business intelligence (BI) system to improve the quality of your data as much as possible. And the sooner you start to use a BI system to do it, the better.

For example, the largest pub company in the UK, Stonegate, was acquiring the Yates’ and Slug and Lettuce pub brands from their parent company, Town and City. Mergers and acquisitions often cause of poor-quality data because companies inherit new data, in different formats, that automatically create a fractured dataset and siloed resources. From the outset, Stonegate sought support to combine the finance data from the new brands with its own to create a single, trustworthy view of company performance. To guarantee the quality of its data and empower its decision-makers, we realigned the new data to match its new location.

As well as avoiding substantial costs, having good quality data has several standalone benefits too. It’s not just about saving money, there are other advantages:

• Better quality data gives you better quality decision-making.

Data that’s more accurate, detailed and complete enables your decision-makers to make better decisions. Decisions that are more accurate, that have a more detailed focus, or that focus on a bigger more complete picture.

• Better data enhances your products or services.

If you have detailed, up-to-date data in your CRM, then you can accurately customise your product or service for your customers. For example, if you’re in hospitality, you may give customers promotions based on their birthday, or offer them rewards for their loyalty.

• Better data supports wider data use throughout your company.

If your data is high quality, it’s more trustworthy and your colleagues will be able to depend on it. This can help to build a ‘data culture’ in your organisation, which itself has many positive benefits.

We’ve helped many organisations clean their data. To learn more about the process and how we can help, speak with one of our data experts.