8 Business Strategies for Better Data Quality Management

Data – the many stats, quantities, and facts that could be pertaining to companies or customers – are the lifeblood of businesses in this modern era. Companies utilize data to make all kinds of decisions, ranging from who they employ, how they market to customers, and how they simply go about their day-to-day operations.

With not a lot of data to utilize, companies will find it nearly impossible to succeed.

Of course, it’s not enough to have data. The data in your company’s possession must also be of high quality for it to have any real value.

So, what is data quality? The term refers to the completeness and accuracy of the data. It matters because your company won’t be able to work effectively if the quality of the data is poor.

If you want your marketing efforts, customer interactions, and internal changes to bear fruit, your data must be of high quality.

That is why data quality management is crucial to the success of any company. Numerous aspects of your company can be significantly improved if high quality data remain readily available.

The only way for you to ensure that your company is making use of high quality data is to keep a close watch over all those bits and pieces of important information while simultaneously working to streamline inputting and maintenance processes.

Listed below are the things that will help you manage your company’s data quality better.

Take a Closer Look at Your Company Data

Before seeking to make any widespread changes to the way your company handles data, the best thing you can do is to review the information available first.

Assign people to conduct a thorough rundown of the data to see if there are any errors or inconsistencies. For now, taking action on those erroneous entries is not necessary. Simply noting them is enough at this stage.

Put the Right People in Charge

This may seem like an obvious point, but there is still a tendency on the part of some business owners to disregard or at least minimize the importance of staffing when it comes to who handles the data.

You may think that simply having people who can input information fast is good enough, but that’s far from the truth. Take the time to scout for the people who are fully capable of handling technical tasks. With the right people handling the data, you will have fewer things to worry about.

Set the Standards and Policies for Maintaining the Quality of the Data

To promote uniformity and consistency throughout the many databases being used by your company, it is important to establish specific standards and policies for your employees to follow.

You cannot have your employees setting their own guidelines because that can lead to the creation of a database populated by inconsistent data entries. Take the lead and prevent that from by happening by setting the standards yourself.

Employ Data Profiling Technology

In conjunction with the new data standards, you can also introduce data profiling technology to make the task of data management easier for everyone involved.

Data profiling technology enables users to develop a better understanding of the entries that exist within the database and it may even help with identifying connections that exist among numerous entries across multiple databases.

Data profiling software can also help with impact analysis and the faster detection of errors, per Experian.

Carry Out Data Matching and Normalization

Remember those errors that emerged from the review earlier? It’s now time to address them.

Look closely at the entries and scan them for any typos or spelling mistakes. You should also make sure that the entries are consistent throughout all the databases to prevent anyone from getting confused later on.

By investing in data matching, it will become easier to produce more accurate search results whenever specific entries are being retrieved, per Techopedia. Your business operations can speed up significantly if you carry out data matching regularly.

Manage Your Non-Text Data Assets Better

It’s not just the data entries that matter in maintenance and management. The images and videos that exist within your databases need to be cared for properly as well.

Keep them correctly classified and place tags on them so that they can be easily tracked down should the need arise for them to be retrieved.

Automate if You Can

Human error is inevitable, but it can be manageable. With the standards in place, the profiles established, and the assets identified, it’s now time to increase automation.

By leaning more on automation, you should be able to significantly cut down on the number of errors made and create even better databases.

Introduce Master Data Management

Finally, do not forget to integrate master data management tools into your company operations.

Along with assisting with all of the things mentioned above, master data management can also be helpful when it comes time to collect, distribute, and consolidate data. Master data management software will make everyone’s tasks easier to handle and it can also boost the productivity of everyone in your company.