What Is Data Quality?
Data is the base for all technology today. It is the foundation on which information and knowledge exist—information is data in a particular context, and knowledge is information that is actionable in nature. Superior data quality ensures good information quality. High-quality information, in turn, leads to robust actionable knowledge for use in business operations, ultimately resulting in profitable business outcomes.
What Makes Data High-quality?
High-quality data is described as data that is fit to use for its intended purpose. For instance, if a customer master data record is suitable for issuing an invoice upon receiving payment, it can be considered to be high-quality data. At the same time, customer master data records that are incorrect or incomplete are not high-quality data because they incorrectly or inadequately describe the who, where, and what of customers.
Business data should always strive to be fit for purpose, and the easiest way to ensure this is by making sure it is correct and complete. Data that is aligned with the real world is often high-quality. Other signs of high-quality data include being useful for new purposes as and when such purposes arise, usefulness for fulfilling business objectives, and suitability for all forms of processing.Data quality software delivers high-quality data to organizations.
What Is Data Quality Software?
Data quality solutions offer a wide range of functionality, such as data cleansing, parsing, profiling, enrichment, and monitoring. With data quality software like Informatica Data Quality, IBM InfoSphere QualityStage, SAP Data Management, SAS Data Quality, and Talend Open Studio, organizations can comprehend, monitor, and standardize critical and sensitive business data with ease throughout the information lifecycle, ensuring continuous operability and validity. The key features of data quality software include conformity, completeness, consistency, accuracy, uniqueness, and integrity.
Why Is Data Quality Software Important?
No matter what vertical or market a business operates in, it requires complete and correct data in order to function effectively. Data quality software ensures the presence of good-quality data for use in business operations. As more and more companies across segments undergo digital transformation, data quality solutions are becoming more important than ever before. A high-quality databank enables a business to gain a competitive advantage in any market. Data quality software is used to conduct advanced analysis on data and use the resultant actionable insights to craft business strategies that ensure the effective realization of organizational goals.
Takeaway
Data quality can represent the health of an organization—the management team of a healthy organization relies on high-quality data to make winning business decisions. Numerous factors affect the health of an organization, and through the use of cutting-edge data quality solutions, businesses can exert control over a majority of these factors, thus ensuring a healthy data ecosystem.
