Data quality

This year’s AAMVA International Conference (AIC) was held in the “City of Brotherly Love”—Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As it does each year, the AIC attracted representatives from across the North America who work in the public sector, particularly those that work in the motor vehicle space. The conference, which ran from August 21 – 23, covered many of the most pressing topics currently facing those in the motor vehicle space. There is a major emphasis on improving the customer experience and reducing wait times at department of motor vehicle branches in regions across America. One of the major areas of emphasis comes around the regulations for REAL ID.

Across nearly every industry, data has become a key driver for critical business initiatives. At the same time, data will only add value to your business when it is trustworthy and actionable. That means there should be a robust and reliable data quality management strategy in place that aligns with the needs of your entire organization. The best way to justify the need for investing in a data quality management strategy is to identify the areas in which it will benefit the business as a whole. Here are the top four reasons to invest in data quality management. 

In the ever-increasing pace of today’s business environment, everyone is looking for ways to maximize the outcomes of their efforts and create more efficient processes. And more and more, organizations are looking to data to be the fuel that accelerates their business. According to our 2018 global data management benchmark report, 99 percent of businesses believe being data-driven gives their organization a competitive advantage. They believe that advantage includes better insight for decision making (57%), more efficient business practices (57%), and better customer relationships (56%). The thing is, though, that being data-driven only provides these benefits when the data driving the strategy is high-quality and accurate.

Business leaders today are using data to power all sorts of initiatives, from uncovering revenue opportunities to complying with regulations. More and more, data is becoming a mission-critical asset that many argue should be tracked on a balance sheet. In fact, nearly all of the C-level executives in our 2018 global data management benchmark report (95%) believe that data is an integral part of forming their business strategy—a sentiment that has increased by 15 percent over the prior year.

When a foundation of quality data underpins your business initiatives it has the potential to positively transform your organization. However, a lack of trustworthy data can prevent your organization from maximizing the value of this asset. That’s why it’s essential to ensure that you have strong operational data quality at the foundation of your business. With the right processes and technology in place, you can achieve a trusted data source. If you are struggling to achieve the high-quality data you need, don’t fret! Here are our top 3 tips for maintaining data quality:

Last week, I had the privilege of attending the 2018 MIT CDOIQ Symposium in Cambridge, Mass. The event brings together data practitioners and business leaders from a variety of sector to advance the professional development of Chief Data Officers. Throughout the three days of workshops and classroom-style lectures, attendees were treated to a rich agenda with topics ranging from regulation to artificial intelligence. While I wish I could have attended all of the sessions, I wanted to share some common themes from the workshops I did attend.

This week, I attended the 2018 Tessitura Learning and Community Conference (TLCC) in Orlando, FL. For the first time, a Disney property was selected for this conference and at first, I was surprised by the size of this location. However, once I arrived I realized that while the venue seemed larger than ever before, the 1900 attendees filled it up quite well. So when the conference shared that this was the largest attendance of any previous Tessitura conference, it wasn’t hard to believe. This community is growing and is strong, and throughout the conference, I saw many positive trends.

Last week, myself and members of the Experian team attended the MDM and Data Governance Summit in Chicago. The main topics of this conference were MDM (Master Data Management) and DG (Data Governance), although at many times, it was difficult to tell the difference.  MDM and DG are starting to meld together as one topic, with MDM being the data repository for all (or as much as possible) corporate data, and DG being the documentation and “GPS” for navigating the data (in this case, GPS means “Gain Perspective Simply”.

Have you ever launched an email campaign only to find out that most of your emails never even made it to the intended target due to soft or hard bounces? Have you ever spent a large amount of your budget on syndicated content and then come to find out that your target audience is from a database that was collected from tradeshows and POS systems where a consumer’s email is captured with no verification? How can you determine if those email addresses were correctly captured? Whether the information was wrong at point of capture, or became outdated, these issues ultimately contribute to your company’s email reputation.

As mobile devices continue their rise to prominence, organizations in every industry are clamoring to find ways to optimize the mobile experience for their customers. At this point, a positive mobile experience has become virtually synonymous with a positive customer experience. Simply designing an app or making your website mobile responsive is a great place to start, but how do you continue to optimize the experience from there? A good mobile experience is all about making it as simple and frictionless as possible. And that’s where data quality can truly help.