No matter what your initiative, accurate data is where to start if you want to make the best possible decisions. There’s certainly no lack of data. But simply having lots of data won’t necessarily help you answer big questions, understand problems or make faster, better decisions. To achieve competitive advantage, maintain profitability or satisfy customers, you must be able to act on what the data tells you.

 Unfortunately, many of us are overwhelmed by our data despite recent advances in data management technology and tools. Massive volumes of it are often spread across departments, teams and locations in different formats and systems, hindering reporting and analysis. And if there are disparities among different systems or reports, you probably spend too much time finding and cleansing data − time that could be better spent analyzing, communicating or responding. Even after the data is fixed during a monthly fire drill, you haven’t necessarily changed the systemic issues or root causes of
your data quality challenges.