It is clear that implementing Big Data is only as good as the quality of data itself. Having good quality data can help businesses be more confident in their data, as well as the decisions and strategy build around it. Not only that, it is a well-known fact that the cost of poor data quality is huge. Based on recent research by Gartner, poor data quality is responsible for an average of USD 15 million per year in losses. Understanding the impact of good quality data for an organization, it is important to realize that companies cannot improve data quality passively. To avoid pitfalls and getting the best outcome from data, companies should proactively invest in data quality management. Here are some strategies on how to improve the company data quality.

Determine your company’s purpose in using data to understand your data strategy

The first step of proactively improving your data quality is determining the purpose of using data in your company. Companies need to ask the question of what do they want from their data and how they are going to use the information. This step is very crucial, because it will help organizations to have a definition of data quality that is most suitable for them. Different companies will have different metrics to measure data, because every company is unique and has different focuses and needs. Understanding the purpose can also help companies to set data quality standards and define which data to keep, which to correct, and which to get rid of. Once you know your purpose and standards, it is very important to communicate this back to your team and make sure that everyone involved in managing your data understands and agrees with the standards, so that you have consistency across your organization. 

Assess your current data quality and list out some improvement points

Once businesses determine the ideal data quality metrics for their companies, the next step is to evaluate where they stand now. When proactively managing your data quality, it is important to understand the gap and have a view on how close you are in reaching the ideal data quality and the standard that you have set before. This gap analysis will then be used by the companies to outline all the action plan and improvement points needed to achieve the standard.

Hire the right people and invest in technology that can help you improve your data quality

Last but not least, companies need to invest in the right people and technology to improve their data quality. Although data quality management is everyone’s business, it is very important to assign one person to become the data owner of the company. This person will be responsible to oversee the process of improving your data quality and therefore helping the company to develop a cohesive plan across the organization rather than having data quality strategies spread out across many different units and implement different plans. Not only that, businesses need to also speed up data processing with Big Data platforms that help companies to better visualize and analyze data.

Investing in Big Data Indonesia, businesses need to proactively improve data quality by determining purposes and standard, assessing their current status and doing gap analysis, as well as investing in the right people and the right technology. When businesses are proactively improving their data quality, they will have better confidence in making data-driven decision making, better productivity, and therefore increase business success.