Big data has garnered tremendous importance in the last few years. In fact, the big data analytics market is all set to climb to 655 billion by 2029. Arming companies and organizations with deep customer insights and intelligence, big data is a force multiplier for any organization and the only way to grow in this data-driven world.
However, big data does have its Achilles heel, and it comes in the form of dirty data. This dirty data can show up in multiple forms, including data decay, inaccuracies, redundancies, duplication, etc. In essence, dirty data is the biggest threat to leveraging big data.
The lifeblood of organizations, i.e., customer intelligence, will be misinterpreted, resulting in quite a few pitfalls for the organization. Swimming in mounds of dirty data will cause marketing and sales professionals to lose out on many conversions. In fact, over 69% of organizations genuinely believe that dirty data is the biggest barricade in providing a seamless customer experience.
So, why is data cleansing important? We answer that question in detail in the following article.
Why Is Data Cleaning Important?
Here are some of the top reasons why data cleansing matters so much to organizations:
1. It Helps You Make Sure That You Are Targeting The Right Customers
The biggest and most important pro of having clean data at your fingertips is that it helps you get all the right customers. Once your data becomes coarse, it might put the wrong companies in your scope, losing you considerable revenue. In the current technological landscape, customer expectations are constantly shifting, and your data needs to match this change simultaneously.
If not, your customer data will be outdated in a few days. You need data cleansing systems that automatically sort, implement, and parse customer information so that new information always takes the front seat. In fact, on average, companies believe that over 29% of their data has inaccuracies. This will only solve a part of your problem.
You must keep appending new credible data regularly to keep up with the ever-changing customer expectations. Hence, data cleansing is the way to go if you want to target the right audience.
2. Gets Rid Of All Decayed And Duplicated Data
Data quality is at the crux of leveraging big data to drive customer decisions. Think about it! How will you drive in business if your customer records are incorrect? Forget lead conversions, even contacting them would be an issue.
Your company needs mounds of big data to derive meaningful customer insights. However, it will be prone to more mistakes in case this data collection process is done manually. Furthermore, manual updation will increase the risk of data duplication as well.
So, you need an automated system to ensure that your data is always cleaned and appended. You can outsource these services to ensure that all your data stays updated. This will ensure that your company’s overall processes are cleaned up, boosting productivity significantly.
3. Helps You Drive Better Business Decisions
As mentioned above, the dynamic nature of customer expectations and behaviors makes it difficult for companies to catch up if they don’t leverage their data. As a result, companies now have to develop innovative ways to leverage big data to get ahead of this issue.
This will help you make better business decisions and have the edge over your competitors. Hence, you need your data to be clean to trust the insights and reports derived from it. The consequences that entail this are only going to bring in more conversions.
Oversaturated data with inaccuracies will waste a lot of your resources, paving that path for more losses than profits.
4. It Can Give Your ROI The Boost That It Needs
Let’s break down this point into two parts. Having inaccurate data in your data repository will lead to the following unexpected expenses:
- Data cleansing will ensure that you are communicating with the right people. The ‘right people’ refers to all those genuine prospects interested in the products or services you offer, i.e., your target audience. Sending emails to the wrong people will only waste your time and effort.
- Furthermore, if people find mail sent by someone they don’t recognize, they will mark it as spam. You must steer clear of spam boxes since it is highly unprofessional if you target the wrong crowd.
Staying away from these spam folders and having your marketing campaign reach the right target audience will eventually result in good conversion ratios. This is only possible when there is clean data in your repository.
5. It Brings Up Productivity And Process Efficiency
Cluttered databases are the biggest enemy of productivity and efficiency within an organization. Why? Well, it will take longer for your computer systems to pull information and insights. Since the database has yet to be cleaned, all the client menus become riddled with older client information, making it a much longer list than it needs to be. This will, in turn, bring down efficiency.
It can even have your managers make blunders like placing orders with old suppliers who you are no longer in touch with. This will lead to a whole mess, cutting down productivity considerably.
Wrapping Up
So, why is data cleaning important? Well, having an unorganized database can cause much more damage than you realize. Think about it this way. Compare your data repository to your workstation.
If it is cluttered and untidy, you can’t find what you need, and it can get overwhelming to work diligently amidst so much chaos. Having a clean workstation, with everything kept in its place, will have you start your day on a good note. Your efficiency will see a significant boost.
The same goes for data repositories. A clean repository means you can pull information however you want since everything is in order. There is no confusion or chaos to deal with.
Therefore, make it a point that you outsource data cleaning services regularly to maintain the health of your repository.
