With the sheer amount of data that businesses hold onto and accumulate, it’s essential that all of it is kept safe, organised, accurate and accessible.
And having accurate information is important for every business. Big or small. Especially in an increasingly data-driven world.
Having accurate employee and customer information means that you can get to know your staff and audience better. It allows for better, more precise decision-making. It paves way for improved innovation and increased productivity.
Plus, having cleaner, quality data will help you get the most out of your business efforts.
What is Data Cleansing, Again?
Data cleansing is a process of preparing data for use by removing or modifying data that is incomplete, irrelevant, incorrect, duplicated, or wrongfully formatted.
Why is that important?
Because having data at the center of any company’s decision-making requires a strong combination of multiple data sources. The more inputs you’re able to get, the better your predictions become.
But because the data comes from multiple sources and in different forms, there is ample room for error.
With a variety of stages that data needs to go through before it can be considered clean, there are also different approaches, methods and tools for cleaning that data.
And it isn’t as simple as erasing information to free up space for new data. It’s about finding ways to maximise a dataset’s accuracy without having to necessarily delete any information.
The Benefits of Having Clean Data
Ensuring that your data is clean and organised brings far more benefit than just accessibility.
Through optimising your data, there will be a trickle-down effect, where other areas within your organisation will see added benefit and improvements.
For example, by ensuring that you have clean, organised information, you’re able to reduce error and therefore, unexpected or risk-associated costs.
Perhaps you project incorrect information on your app or company website that could cost you dearly or damage your reputation. With clean, accessible data, you can avoid those costly errors and save on firefighting.
Some of the other benefits? Well…
Better Decision Making
Every business has a reliance on customer and employee data to make better decisions. And the accumulation of big data acts as a fundamental pillar to effective decision-making.
Without that data being clean and accessible, businesses would be running at massive losses.
According to global stats on Big Data technologies, poor data quality costs businesses worldwide anywhere between £7.3 million and £10.7 million every year.
Yet, so many organisations fail to prioritize the effective management of data quality.
The bottom line is that poor data leads to poor decision making. When an organisation makes decisions based on accurate, accessible data and facts, it increases the efficacy of decision making.
Quality data and accurate information gives you better analytics and business intelligence, leading to improved decision-making & execution.
Boost Productivity
Data cleaning not only improves the quality of your data and thus allows for better decision making, it also has the potential to increase overall productivity.
Cleansing your data means getting rid of outdated or incorrect information, which leaves you with the highest quality information available. It means that your employees don’t have to work through countless siloed and outdated documents and focus on what’s important.
Having squeaky clean, healthy databases in place allows businesses to ensure that their staff members are being productive with their working hours.
Working with accessible and structured data inevitably ends up maximising staff productivity and efficiency.
For example, clean data can reduce fraud risks with workers having access to accurate customer data in the case of refunds or payments.
Increase in Revenue
By working on the accessibility and accuracy of your data, your business will make significant improvements in it’s response rates. Which, in turn, could mean a boost in revenue.
Clean data makes for better results and greater ROI, especially when delivering a targeted and consistent message to the right audiences, staff and even clients.
Better data essentially means better response rates. And an increase in responses and interactions will help with achieving business goals and drive revenues.
Your data can also help organisations significantly reduce bounce rates. Data cleansing helps in removing duplicate or incorrect data effectively. Therefore affecting the entire experience that your company offers a customer.
To top it off, inaccurate and unclean information can drastically drain your company resources as you’ll have to spend twice the amount of time, effort and investment on dealing with a single client.
Start Getting Your Data Squeaky Clean
The proof is in the pudding. Data is driving entire industries to new heights and without easy, clean access to your data, you run the risk of falling behind.
With clean, accessible data, your business has far more potential in an increasingly competitive world.
Our teams of data engineers and data experts can help you put your data in the best place it could ever be. If you want high-quality data that drives meaningful insights:
