Dirty data holding businesses back

Dirty data will cost businesses money and time over the next two years with more than 25 per cent of all critical information used by Fortune 1000 companies having flaws, according to analyst Gartner.

Flawed data includes information that is inaccurate, incomplete or duplicated, creating significant and unnecessary costs for companies, it said.

If the quality of customer data is poor, this can lead to higher customer turnover, missed sales opportunities and excessive expenses from customer contact processes such as mailouts.

Business areas such as budgeting, manufacturing and distribution can also be severely affected by dirty data.

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With companies making both transparency and compliance a priority - due to regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the US or Basel II in Europe - data needs to be accurate and well managed.

Gartner Research vice president Andreas Bitterer said companies need to change culture and bring in 'data stewards' responsible for the quality of information.

Bitterer added technology will play a role in fixing data quality issues and organisations will need to invest in the approproate IT.

The findings come from Gartner's annual survey of 1,400 CIOs globally which found business is increasingly reliant on data to grow and develop.