It may not be explicitly stated but ensuring your company has good quality data is part of your job role. Why? Because all of us depend on data to do our work and if this data contains errors, it makes your job more complicated.

What would I need to do?

You need to advocate for data quality.

When you come across data errors, your natural reaction is one of two things – correct the error or ignore the error because it is time consuming and a waste of your time to find and fix every data related flaw in the system.

Whilst this is true, your work is likely to depend on the data that your systems hold and without this data, your job becomes nearly impossible or extremely complicated. Unless you like long nights and high doses of over time, we suggest that you speak out for data quality.

As we’ve established before, finding and fixing every single data error in the system is time consuming and expensive. It is also a total waste of time as data can change on a regular basis meaning that there is no value in doing this. A popular solution would be then to prevent errors at their source which reduces the need to find and fix data errors – this addresses data in a more proactive manner.

As an individual and as part of a team, you can prevent bad data from entering into your systems by verifying data inputted, by ensuring that databases are regularly monitored and updated and by actively communicating about bad data. If every person in a company were to follow these simple steps, data related costs would dramatically decrease and the customer experience would be dramatically enhanced.

There must be an easier way to do this!

You’re right – it is just as time consuming to let employees handle and manage data. Systems can be put into place to ensure that all data held is verified and up to date as well as to remove bad data and duplicate data. But the truth is, most companies still don’t know how to manage their data. They have plenty ideas about what they could do but prefer to sit on the side lines adopting a reactive manner. It is your job to speak out about data quality and push your company into a proactive state. What does this mean? Forcing your company to adapt a strategy which allows them to better manage their data and thus, benefit from a data driven competitive advantage.

Driving data quality within a company starts from the bottom – it requires individuals to raise their voices and voice their concerns.

Want to find out more? The Melissa team is happy to speak to you about our data management services – feel free to contact the team on 020 7718 0070 or via email at info.uk@melissa.com.

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