Data Quality Predictions for 2019
If you’re serious about data quality, pay attention to these four key trends in 2019 and beyond.
It was an exciting year to be in the data quality business. In terms of both new capabilities, and the growing strategic business role of data quality professionals, we have seen a lot of growth — and, more important, legitimacy. Compared with even a few years ago, we are now an increasingly mission-critical part of organizational efforts ranging from fraud prevention and compliance to revenue generation. The emergence of roles such as the chief data officer (CDO), as well as the continued growth of data governance efforts, point to where we are headed as a profession.
Against that backdrop, here are four trends I feel are going to occupy more of our attention in 2019.
Consumer Privacy Compliance Will be Front and Center
If there was a single seismic event that changed the way businesses looked at data quality this year, it was the rollout of strict consumer privacy legislation such as Europe’s GDPR regulation. And guess what? It won’t stop there.
Consumer privacy regulations will continue to proliferate and force companies to change the way they do business. In 2019 and beyond, get ready for more legislation and privacy initiatives, ranging from Canada’s just-introduced PIPEDA laws to the new California Consumer Privacy Act, signed into law this summer and taking effect in 2020. Compliance efforts will continue to be a growing and increasingly complex business function reaching into the C-levels of most organizations.
Once upon a time, bad contact data and sloppy direct marketing were accepted by many as a cost of doing business. Today, threats of steep fines and regulatory enforcement are driving everyone to clean up their act as well as their customer-centric data — which, to me, is a positive development. From here, data quality tools such as contact data validation will remain at the top of the agenda as organizations are forced to have genuine and accurate information on their customers and prospects to avoid risking non-compliance penalties.
Enterprises Will Demand Greater Security and Uptime From Vendors
As businesses become increasingly accountable for data security standards — and increasingly vulnerable to being liable for issues ranging from data breaches to cybercrime — more of them are now demanding that vendors have strict data security/cybersecurity measures in place at both a procurement and a contract level.
