{"id":16125,"date":"2013-05-20T13:50:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-20T20:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/devwww.3cloudsolutions.com\/post\/business-analytics-less-data-quality-equals-bad-decisions-2\/"},"modified":"2024-01-03T14:28:12","modified_gmt":"2024-01-03T22:28:12","slug":"business-analytics-less-data-quality-equals-bad-decisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/resources\/business-analytics-less-data-quality-equals-bad-decisions\/","title":{"rendered":"Business Analytics less Data Quality equals Bad Decisions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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You’ve finally done it.\u00a0 You finally convinced IT leadership that analytics<\/a> is critical to your business, and after many months of hard work they’ve finally delivered.\u00a0 Now your team has dashboards and reports that allow them to monitor business operations as they’re happening, not days or weeks after the fact!<\/p>\n

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As you continue to use the dashboards, you begin to notice a pattern emerging.\u00a0 The data in the new reports doesn’t quite match the data you\u2019ve used in the past for making decisions, although when compared against the source systems they seem to reconcile.\u00a0 Not only that, but your team has been noticing that there are duplicate customer records, timing differences in reported revenue between the accounting system and the line of business system, and missing information in many of the product listings.<\/p>\n

\"Key<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Business analytics solutions are intended to compile data across the organization and make it available at all levels.\u00a0 In this way business analytics serves as a mirror, effectively shining a light on any data quality issues that exist.\u00a0 Business analytics solutions, if properly implemented, can resolve some quality issues but it is not feasible to retroactively resolve all data quality issues for use in dashboards and reports.<\/p>\n

Resolving data quality issues can be difficult.\u00a0 Responsibility for data quality resides across the entire organization, and therefore will require an action plan that includes the entire organization.\u00a0 Here are some tips you can use to begin to get a handle on your organizations data quality.<\/p>\n

Identifying the Root Cause of Data Quality Issues<\/strong><\/p>\n

Understanding the root cause of data quality issues is the first step towards resolving them.\u00a0 Data quality issues arise when there is mismanagement somewhere along the information supply chain.\u00a0 There are too many potential causes to list them all, but here are a few common problems to look for.<\/p>\n

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  1. Conflicting Source Systems \u2013 Is your data sourced from a single line of business system?\u00a0 Or are there multiple systems with potentially conflicting information?\u00a0 Many of the clients I\u2019ve worked with use multiple ERP systems for different business divisions.\u00a0 This can lead to a number of difficulties when combining data within your business analytics solution.<\/li>\n
  2. Manual\/Duplicate Entry \u2013 Does your data have a single point of origin?\u00a0 If not, you can bet there will be inconsistencies in how the data is entered.\u00a0 In a recent webinar the moderator typed \u2018Hello\u2019 and received no less than 6 variations in return (\u2018Hello\u2019, \u2018hello\u2019, \u2018Hello!\u2019, \u2018hi\u2019, \u2018Hi\u2019, \u2018Good Morning!\u2019)<\/li>\n
  3. Inconsistently Applied Business Rules \u2013 Remember all those spreadsheets your team used to pull together every month?\u00a0 All the business logic applied to them while \u2018massaging\u2019 the data were being recreated every month.\u00a0 Where in the organization are those rules captured, other than in someone\u2019s head or in a collection of outdated spreadsheets?\u00a0 Are you sure they were applied consistently to every report each month?\u00a0 And whose version of the spreadsheet contains the \u2018correct\u2019 rules, anyway?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Guidelines for Resolving Data Quality Issues<\/strong><\/p>\n

    There will be many challenges as you and your team begin to take control of your enterprise data.\u00a0 To help you begin to move down the right path here are some guidelines to help you resolve some of the above issues, as well as others that may not have been mentioned.<\/p>\n

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    1. Assign Ownership \u2013 Would you run your business without having an account manager for your key customer accounts?\u00a0 Then why would you allow your business to run without sanctioning data stewards to manage key data assets? If you\u2019re reading this article, then you clearly understand how important data is to your organization.\u00a0 Make sure important data is being cared for, and be sure the stewards have the support they need to be effective.<\/li>\n
    2. Standardize Corporate Data Processes \u2013 By properly defining processes governing the creation, management, and consumption of data assets, an organization can improve data quality significantly.\u00a0 Many of the data issues organizations face today exist simply because they weren\u2019t paying attention!\u00a0 If data is treated as a byproduct of business operations, then don\u2019t be surprised when it turns out to be marginally effective for analysis.<\/li>\n
    3. Create a Cross-Functional Data Council \u2013 Establishing ownership and defining processes in a vacuum is akin to not changing anything at all.\u00a0 The only way to dictate standards for data management within an organization is to involve team members from across the organization.\u00a0 Data touches all aspects of an enterprise, and failure to acknowledge this will lead to continuing quality issues because treatment of data will be unbalanced.\u00a0 Forming a data council will also serve as support for data stewards by providing them with a venue for escalating complex data issues.<\/li>\n
    4. Data Management \u2013 Once people and processes have been put into place to control corporate data assets, it may be time to look at technology to help close the gap on any remaining data quality problems.\u00a0 There are a number of technology solutions that can be very powerful, but technology alone cannot solve data quality issues.\u00a0 Some data management projects your new data council should consider might be implementing master data solutions, data quality tools to facilitate data steward activities, a corporate data dictionary, or even just automating feeds between line-of-business systems.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      If you\u2019re thinking that the above guidelines are beginning to look suspiciously like implementing a Data Governance program, you\u2019d be right.\u00a0 Data governance can provide a tremendous step forward in data quality for any organization.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve already acknowledged that competing on analytics should be part of your organizations competitive advantage, then there should be no question that data governance should be in your near future.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Guidelines for identifying and removing data quality issues discovered in your business analytics solution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":15592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[297],"tags":[304],"class_list":["post-16125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-data-platform","tag-modern-data-platform","topics-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}