Survey: IT pros ignore poor data quality

Only 15 per cent of organisations rate their data quality as “high or very high,” costing some tens of millions of dollars as a result, the findings of a new survey released today has shown.

Despite the poor levels of confidence in the accuracy of master data, nearly a third (30 per cent) have yet to deploy any data quality tools to combat the problem.

And while 21 per cent of respondents believed the inaccuracies in their data costs their company between $10 and $100 million (£5.1 and £51.2 million) per year, only 14 per cent thoughts costs directly attributable to poor master data were less than $1 million (£512,236) per year.

The master data management (MDM) focused researcher, Information Difference surveyed 112 chief information officers (CIOs), vice presidents of IT and chief architects, 65 per cent of whom were from companies with more than $1 billion (£512 million) in revenue. Nearly a quarter (24 per cent) were from Europe, with 56 per cent from North America and the remainder were from the rest of the world.

“We often hear that MDM is a key concern for CIOs, yet in reality it seems there’s still very little actually being done about it,” said Andy Hayler, Information Difference chief executive.

The research found one of the major obstacles preventing companies from managing their master data effectively is the sheer number of systems holding this information. Only one per cent of those surveyed had a unified source for their master data.

The median number of systems holding customer data was six, with nine the average for product data. But 13 per cent of companies had over 100 systems storing customer data, while 11 per cent had over 100 systems storing product data.

“Particularly worrying is that that over half the senior IT executives we spoke to weren’t consistently sure whose spreadsheet has the correct data,” added Hayler.

The lack of common definitions for profit margins within companies was a clear indication of the lack of discord around master data according to the survey: more than one third of respondents said they didn't calculate profit margins consistently across the organisation.

And of those actually planning to implement an MDM system, 47 per cent intended to buy a package, 18 per cent will build in-house and the rest were not sure. But the majority (59 per cent) said they would prefer a unified platform that can deal with all types of master data, compared to just 14 per cent who preferred specialised data hubs around customer and product information, for example.

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