The fundamental problem with data quality is fairly straightforward. If your data is of low quality, then the decisions taken by your organization, based on that data, will be worthless. Thus, data cleansing or cleaning is critical to ensure an acceptable level of data integrity which will ultimately lead to high-quality data and better decision making.

Now, you might have come across several data cleansing companies or vendors who offer data cleansing services, but wouldn’t have actually availed the services. Well, you aren’t the only one; so don’t worry!

In this three-part guide, we will get all your doubts cleared by talking about data cleansing, different types of data issues and finally some of the best data cleansing practices that you can implement right now.

What is Data Cleansing or Cleaning?

In simple words, data cleansing or cleaning is the process of identifying and fixing any issues with your data set. The sole objective of data cleaning is to fix any data that is incorrect, inaccurate, incomplete, duplicated, or even irrelevant to the objective of the data set. This is typically accomplished by replacing, modifying, or even deleting any data that falls into one of these categories.

Though it does and can involve deleting information, it is focused more on correcting, updating and consolidating data. Good data drives good decisions and that’s what data cleansing services help you with; managing and streamlining your data to make your business more agile.

What are the different types of data issues?

Let’s have a look at some of the common ways your data may not be supporting your business needs:

Duplicate Data: Sometimes there can be more than 2 or more identical records. This may cause misrepresentation of inventory counts/duplication of marketing collateral or unnecessary billing activities.

Conflicting Data: This happens when there are same records with different attributes. For example, a company with different versions of addresses may cause delivery issues.

Incomplete Data: The data can have some missing attributes. For instance, payrolls of employees may not be processed due to their missing social security numbers in the database.

Invalid Data: This happens when data attributes are not conforming to standardization. For example, 8 digits phone number records rather than 10 digits.

Why is Data Cleaning Important?

Data quality is of central importance to enterprises that rely on data for maintaining their operations. Consider, for instance, businesses need to make sure that right invoices are mailed to the right customers on right email ids. Thus, to make the most of customer data and boost your brand value, you must focus on data quality.

Besides, below is the list of a few benefits that data cleansing brings along.

Boost Customer Acquisition

Organizations that keep their databases in shape can maintain lists of prospects with the help of accurate and updated data. This, in turn, increases the efficiency of their customer acquisition and reduces its cost.

Make Sense of Data Across Different Channels

Data cleaning clears the way for managing multichannel customer data seamlessly. This allows organizations to find opportunities for successful marketing campaigns and new ways of reaching their target audiences.

Improve Decision-Making Process

Without recourse to data cleaning services, you will end up making bad decisions and eventually suffer financial losses. Nothing helps to boost a decision-making process like clean, accurate data. Good and updated data supports analytics and business intelligence while providing organizations with resources for better decision-making and execution.

Increase Employee Productivity

When the databases are clean and well-managed, they ensure high productivity of employees who can benefit from the information in a wide range of areas such as customer acquisition or resource planning. Businesses that actively improve their data consistency and accuracy experience an improvement in their response rate and revenue.

Reduce Compliance Risk

Inaccurate and bad data can lead to your business jeopardizing your GDPR compliance efforts. This happens when you send emails to the customer(s) who have removed their consent for receiving marketing emails. This action will be a clear breach of data protection laws on consent. Leverage data cleaning services to avoid such violations and remove corrupt data that hampers your GDPR compliance. You can also protect identifiable information within your maintained database, which includes but not limited to trade secrets, marketing efforts, and business partner interactions.

Avoid Costs of Errors

Data cleansing is the single best solution for controlling and avoiding costs that arise when organizations are busy processing errors, correcting the incorrect data, or troubleshooting.

Outsource Data Cleansing Services for a Better Future

Cleaning your database is a painstaking task. It does not just take a good chunk of your time but resources too. Fortunately, several data cleansing companies help you in managing all facets of data cleansing and data quality management while ensuring error-free customer data within your database.

Outsource data cleansing services today and make your data actionable without any delay. Mail us at info@suntecdata.com.

The post Data Cleansing Guide: What is it and Why is it Important? first appeared on SunTec Data.

No matter how big or small a business you are, you cannot imagine sustainable growth without the support of data. Rather it would be apt to say that modern businesses are driven by data. In a scenario where data has become the main engine of growth for industry verticals across the board, its quality has become more important than ever before. This is simply because consistencies in data invariably lead to anomalies in analysis and in turn wrong outcomes. When inaccurate data can have such a huge impact on your business, data cleansing services become a necessity for you. Data cleansing is the process of rooting out inaccurate entries from your database calls for specialized skills and access to the latest tools and technology.

In this write-up, we will try to understand the process of data cleansing, the various steps involved in it and the benefits of embracing this business practice.

In layman’s terms, data cleansing is the process of identifying erroneous entries within a data set and correcting them using manual and automated tools. The objective of this practice is to make the data error-free, and usable. The process also ensures that the errors once identified are not repeated in the future.

Before delving deeper into the nitty-gritty of data cleansing, it makes sense to be aware of the groundwork that you will have to do to fully leverage its benefits. First of all, you should identify the goals of undertaking this exercise. Constitute a team of all the stakeholders and discuss with them the issues they face due to inconsistent data. Such brainstorming sessions will allow you to single out your focus point and the top metrics in your database that need correction. Then you can draw a blueprint of how exactly you want to cleanse your data. If you do not want to dissipate your resources and time on this non-core but critical business activity, going for the services of data cleansing companies is also a great idea.

Now that we have a fair understanding of the significance of data cleansing services for businesses, and have done all the groundwork, let’s find out the top four things you should consider while cleansing your data.

Identify Patterns In Errors

While taking up data cleansing your main aim should be to identify the patterns of errors. This approach not only allows you to find the origin of inaccuracies in the data but also gives you an opportunity to fix the anomalies for good. While most of the errors in data occur in the capturing phase, a number of inconsistencies creep in during the processing phase as well. By following a structured approach and with a focus on the sources of errors you can cleanse your data more effectively.

Control Duplication With Standardization

Duplicate entries in a database are a major hindrance to any business. In some cases, duplicate data renders the whole database ineffective. For example, if you are using both CRM and ERP to capture customer information, you are bound to have a lot of duplicate entries in your database. Processing information from such entries is time-consuming and often leads to undesired results. To keep such double whammy at bay, you must incorporate standardization in your data cleansing process. All it takes is a good understanding of data entry points and choosing a standard for authentic data. If you are not an expert on this process, it’s in your best interest to go for data cleansing services of a reputed vendor.

Leverage The Latest Technology

When it comes to data cleansing, businesses often go in for conventional methods. While this approach does yield quality results, a lot of your productive time and resources are wasted in manual processes.

Over the years data sciences have evolved rapidly and now offer a host of automated tools that give excellent results. Artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning tools cleanse that data and at the same time prevent erroneous entries in the future, thus minimizing your expenses on data cleansing.

Train Your Team

Once you are through with the data cleansing process, make sure that you communicate the new standards of data capture to your team. If necessary, train them to maintain the standardized format throughout the data capture process.

When your data capture and processing team are on the same page about the health of the database, you will be able to keep your data in good health for a longer time.

Performing data cleansing at regular intervals does keep your data in good health, but if you are doing this exercise too often, it means you are dissipating your valuable time and resources on a non-core activity. In such a scenario, it makes sense to outsource your data cleansing services to a reliable vendor. They not only do this labor-intensive and costly task in a cost-effective manner but also ensure good health of your data for a longer time.

SunTec Data is a reputed name in the data processing and management arena that you can rely on for all your data-related services. For more information on our services feel free to write to us at info@suntecdata.com.

The post Top 4 Things To Consider While Performing Data Cleansing first appeared on SunTec Data.