Do you often go with gut feeling rather than data and insights? Is your data stored in separate databases, in different formats with different values? We all have bad habits and some are a little hard to kick. However, if there is one you must break, it is surely to make your bad data habits a thing of the past…
Breaking bad data habits isn’t easy. Often there is internal resistance to making data-driven changes, especially with ‘the way things have always been done’ attitude many businesses still embrace. However, ignoring the elephant in the room can be costly. According to Experian’s Data Quality Report , 83% of companies believe their revenue is affected by inaccurate and incomplete customer or prospect data. This is often due to time and money being wasted on unnecessary resources and marketing and communication activities, which ultimately result in a huge loss of productivity.
Data is your business’ most valuable asset – it enables you to make the right decisions and impacts everything from email deliver-ability to customer service and ultimately revenue generation.
Unfortunately, many businesses don’t realize the scale of the Data Quality issues and fail to give it the focus it deserves. They continue to follow the status quo, storing data on multiple systems, in different formats with different values without really knowing how to manage it. Consequently, as more and more data builds up, the whole data silo becomes unmanageable.
The Experian Data Quality Report indicates that inaccurate data impacts the bottom line of 88% of businesses, with the average company losing 12% of its revenue as a direct result. Consider this, a typical marketing department sending brochures to people that have moved house due to outdated data – It’s been said that as many as 1 in 12 pieces of direct mail never reach their intended recipient, resulting in wasted time and money.
Furthermore, according to Interact, 19.8% of business time (the equivalent of one day per working week) is wasted by employees searching for information to do their job effectively.
