The Cost Of Poor Data Quality

IDC projects that big data and business analytics revenues will reach 187 billion dollars worldwide by 2019.

However, according to I.B.M., the yearly cost of poor data quality is 3.1 trillion (or 3,100 billion) dollars in the U.S. alone.

It stems from three main sources:

• The resources devoted to the collection of data and, even worse, the correction of bad data.
• The operational impact of the actions taken (poorly targeted sales actions, erroneous deliveries…) based on inaccurate data.
• The consequences of ill-advised strategic decisions made based on bad data.

This is why leaders and managers must stop bowing down to the Big Data golden calf and instead focus on Smart Data.

Smart Data separates the signal from the noise and delivers specific information that businesses can act on. A Smart Data approach seeks a statistical needle in a data haystack rather than getting lost within the volume of data available.

The main value creation sources are sometimes more accessible than we think.