BI 2010 – Some thoughts on data quality and governance

Several sessions this afternoon on data quality and governance. Rather than blogging these separately, here are some thoughts:

• Great illustration of data quality problem having a business impact – bad data led a Telco to prepare a large CapEx project to add bandwidth capacity but a physical inspection showed plenty of actual capacity. Bad data had led to an unnecessary plan.
• An example given was that 20% of customers generate 80% of revenue so a loss of 1% of these good customers through bad data might make a real difference. Of course, if you don’t differentiate how you treat customers then it may not matter if you are wrong about who the profitable 20% are! Good quality data only becomes valuable if it is being used to make a difference in business terms.
• Funding must be linked to strategic imperatives – show that better data is either necessary for an initiative or that it would boost the results of those initiatives. Data quality is not likely to be funded directly.
• A lack of trust in information undermines data-driven decision making…

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