Experian has published the findings of its 2015 Global Data Quality Research, which confirms that businesses are increasingly aware of the potential of data, but 90% are finding data improvement a challenge.
According to Experian, the causes of the struggle to harness the value of data are due to lack of ownership and outdated methods to check data accuracy.
The survey shows that 63% of organisations lack a coherent and centralised approach to data quality, while 29% of organisations are still manually cleaning the data that they have.
Boris Huard, Managing Director of Experian Data Quality, said: "Getting your data strategy right is vital if you want to be successful in this consumer driven, digitalized age."
"Our 2015 Global Data Quality Research paper highlights the importance of having a complete data strategy in place, in order to ensure that your data is well managed and optimised for maximum benefit."
"What is particularly encouraging is that companies are increasingly switching on to the value of their data assets, with 95% of respondents stating that they feel driven to use their data to either understand customer needs, find new customers or increase the value of each customer."
"They recognise that more emphasis on data management and strategy will enable them to satisfy escalating customer expectations."
"However, there is still some way to go. As the research reveals, many challenges persist – the number who suspect that they have data inaccuracies is up from last year and the majority still think they lack a clear approach to data quality."
One of the key findings of the survey shows that 95% of companies feel driven to use data either to understand customer needs, to find new customers or to increase the value of each customer.
CIO’s responded to the survey to say that they believed their businesses could increase profits by an average of 15% if their data was of the highest quality.
However, CIO’s and CDO’s were found to have a difference of opinion when it comes to how much investment is needed in data quality tools in order to create savings. CIO’s believe that investment of £1million is enough whereas CDO’s believe this number to be more than £5million.
The vast majority of organisations (92%) said that they suspect that the data they have might be inaccurate in some way, which is up from 86% from the previous year.
Respondents also believe that 26% of their total data may be inaccurate which also represents an increase from the previous year. This has a knock on effect onto businesses, with 23% saying that revenue has been wasted as a result.
The survey was conducted by interviewing representatives from 1,239 organisations around the world.
