Posted on: July 6, 2017
If you think you’re struggling to keep up with your organization’s data this year, just wait until 2019. On average, we’re seeing global enterprise data double every two years. In theory, offering business access to that quantity of data is like a goldmine of usable information, but for the most part, enterprises aren’t reaping too many benefits. Approximately one-third of all businesses are relying on incomplete and/or unreliable information and only a tiny fraction (four percent) are following best practices for getting the most from their data.
“Dirty” Data
So, why is this happening? With the “Big Data” concept being such a huge trend, why are so many organizations struggling to make sense of what they’ve got? In the majority of cases, data uncertainty arises as the result of simple mistakes that businesses don’t even know that they’re making. These types of errors – no matter how seemingly subtle – have the potential to take immensely useful data, muddy it up, and render it quite useless. This “dirty” data leads to an inability to understand and correctly analyze information, and can cause business owners to draw incorrect conclusions and act upon them – a total disaster.
Cleaning Up Your Data
If you’ve been getting the feeling that your data isn’t as clear or as accurate as you need it to be, it’s high time that you started taking measures to clean up your data. These simple measures can yield transformative results for your entire enterprise. Improved customer insights, higher sales margins, increased productivity, faster and smarter decision making… these are just some of the many benefits associating with cleaning up data and improving your organization. Here’s how:
Clean & Clear Goals
We’ve seen too many businesses with huge disconnects between the corporate and IT sides of the organization. Goals and company actions may not be lining up due to poor communication and a lack of vision. This causes serious data uncertainty due to poor data management and collection. Before you can bolster your big data efforts, you must clean up what you already have and make sure that you have a clean, clear plan for how to gather, analyze, and manage data on the IT side in order to act in harmony with the goals of the corporate side.
Data Scrubbing
Once you’ve got your business goals established, you must ensure that you’re getting the best and most accurate data input possible. Many of the most common data errors can be completely avoided through data scrubbing. Yes, it’s a bit time-consuming, but data scrubbing makes it possible for your business to eliminate incomplete, inaccurate, and duplicate information. For best results and the highest degree of accuracy, it’s often smart to have a subject matter expert perform the act of data scrubbing – not just some intern off the street.
You’ll get the cleanest data when the data is being scrubbed by someone who understands your business and knows the subject matter inside and out. Fortunately, this process is simplified for SQL users with access to Microsoft Data Quality Services (DQS). DQS lets users scrub data with cloud-based reference data services, and also offers profiling that makes it easier to analyze data integrity.
Cleaner Data, Clearer Results
You may have to take a few extra steps in order to clean up your data, but it’s worth the effort. Businesses with clear goals and a clean path to obtaining them will find massive success through harnessing the power of big data.
Need help cleaning up your data? The professionals are Uncommon Solutions can help. Give us a call today.
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