'Dirty data' holding back growth

Anyone looking for evidence to prove the business case for cleaning up their marketing data need look no further than a new study which claims firms experiencing revenue growth are three times more likely to have clean data than those who are struggling.
And although the study stops short in claiming excellent data hygiene results in higher revenues, it maintains that “clean data” contributes to revenue growth while dirty data inhibits growth.
Jerry Rackley, chief analyst for Demand Metric, a global marketing research and advisory firm which carried out the study, said most organisations endure the pain associated with dirty data, but few do anything to alleviate the pain; many simply accept it as a fact.
He added: “The business case for keeping data clean is compelling,” describing the study as “a state of the union of sales and marketing data quality report [to better understand] what kind of relationship exists between data quality and something that matters”.
However the majority of the business leaders quizzed do not appear to treat data quality as a matter of strategic importance; at least not yet.
Although 63% of survey respondents describe their sales and marketing data as dirty, more than half of them (55%) indicate that their companies have no formal data-cleaning process in place.
Asked to identify why their company lacks a formal data-cleansing process, 49% said data hygiene is not a priority, 37% cited a lack of data-cleansing skills and 21% bemoaned a lack of knowledge about data-cleansing options.
Only 11% of respondents indicated that their companies viewed data-cleansing as being too expensive. “The reasons organisations are not managing data hygiene does not have much to do with cost,” Rackley said. “Mostly, this inaction relates to a sense that data quality is not a big deal; that it’s an out-of-sight-out-of-mind problem.”