COSTA MESA, Calif.—A new study indicates that inside many organizations inaccurate data is undermining strategic initiatives.
Experian Data Quality’s 2016 global data management benchmark report found that while the majority of organizations feel data usage is evolving to support significant business outcomes, such as the customer experience, decision-making and governance, the data still is not at the quality level required to achieve these goals.
On average, organizations believe 23% of their data is inaccurate, and organizations are seeing a high number of consequences from bad data, the study shows. In fact, 75% of organizations believe inaccurate data is undermining their ability to provide an excellent customer experience. The level of inaccurate data mainly stems from internal challenges, as organizations lack the knowledge, skills and human resources around data to manage and govern it properly, Experian said.
“Businesses are evolving to make more intelligent decisions based on data, but they haven’t updated their data management processes to ensure they’re using high-quality information,” said Thomas Schutz, senior vice president and general manager for Experian Data Quality. “Organizations still are struggling to find data issues and correct them across the business. While some of this is certainly due to a higher volume of more diverse data types, many of these organizational struggles are internal. For example, a business may lack a central data owner or data staff. For data to fully support the business’ strategic needs, data management strategies need to catch up to data usage. Ultimately, that transformation starts with creating a culture around data.”
The study also found that:
- 75% of businesses believe their organization is more likely to quantify and measure data department by department, rather than across the organization as a whole.
- 84% state that data is an integral part of forming a business strategy.
- 75% find it difficult to predict when and where the next data challenge will arise.