Data quality goes big-time with GDPR in 2018
Data quality can be thought of as the degree to which data reflects accurate, timely, valid, and consistent information in relation to the portrayal of the actual scenario. Put simply, does a customer named Robert Smith really live at 123 Main Street with telephone number 555-1212, bank account X, and preference Y?
The extent to which data can be trusted has often set apart successful projects from failed ones. Inaccurate data creates missed opportunities, customer satisfaction issues, and a host of other problems, ranging from the mundane to the problematic. But never before have the stakes been so high for data quality as they will be in 2018, as the Global Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into effect in Europe—and likely spills over into the US.
Any business with a single customer, employee, or other party living in the EU will be required to explain what data they have; locate it; correct it; explain where they got it; and, if requested, delete it—or face a potentially huge fine. In so doing, data quality moves from a “nice to have” marketing component to a “keep us out of jail” business requirement.
A number of capabilities around good data management are often abridged as “data quality.” The overall requirement is referred to as master data management (MDM), which should include governance, profiling, matching, enrichment, integration, and workflows. Tightly related to these are data cataloging, metadata management, and hierarchy management. Software vendors have been carving up this space into niches for years, vying for invested capital and new clients all over the world.
Today’s GDPR challenge collapses all of those various disciplines into a central requirement to master data for any party (a generic term for customer, supplier, patient, organization, etc.) in a single, cohesive package. A complete record—in this case the master record of an individual’s information—needs to have all of those data disciplines applied to it in unison, and managed by anyone with rights and privileges to correct, update, or delete that information.
