DataFlux

Once an organization decides to invest money and resources to purchase tools and platforms for data quality improvement, it is important to effectively use those tools while simultaneously setting the right expectations across the enterprise. Unfortunately, when buying data quality tools software, there is usually an expectation that as soon as the shrink-wrap is cracked, the company’s data will immediately start to get better. - Read the rest of this entry »

Shhh. Listen. If you’re quiet, you can hear them. They’re the conversations of CRM experts discussing data. And you don’t have to put a glass against the wall anymore to hear them. - Read the rest of this entry »

I have a folder in my office that is filled with articles on the failure of applications, data warehouses, and so forth because of poor quality data. What strikes me about most of these articles is that the failure is usually measured in time, cost, or some other related concern. I suppose that customer service, customer valuation, or something like that is also one of the areas underscored by these failures. - Read the rest of this entry »

In my last blog entry I described my Mother Moment, when—in the midst of advising a client to consider a data quality tool—I reminded myself of my mother. Several glasses of Pinot Noir later, I realized that this could be a lot worse, my mother being one of those existential “everyone’s on their own journey” sort of people. - Read the rest of this entry »

When you pick up a telephone receiver, you have the kind of expectation that is almost no longer an expectation - that there will be a dial tone. The dial tone is an indication that service is available, and the only time you even think about the dial tone is when it isn’t there. Especially in a business environment that relies on communication, the unavailability of the core capability at the customer site will initiate a reaction to coerce the responsible parties to restore the dial tone service. - Read the rest of this entry »

Every woman has a moment where she thinks to herself—or shrieks aloud, depending on the circumstance—“Omigod. I’m turning into my mother.” I had that moment last Thursday. And, to make matters worse (or better), I wasn’t standing before a mirror or admonishing a child, I was meeting with a client. - Read the rest of this entry »

In a recent conversation with a colleague, he mentioned to me that they were purchasing a CDI solution to deploy across their worldwide enterprise. He mentioned, though, that when their team tried to sell it as a data quality solution, the management response was tepid at best. Instead, they reconstructed their proposal in terms of a sales and marketing initiative for their retail sales representatives, the management bought into the concept. - Read the rest of this entry »

I was in a mattress store the other day, and while there, I recalled some of my good old days in manufacturing. No, I was never on the front lines, or the product line; I was back in the office, amid the financials and related matters. Those were heady days indeed, if one considers all the mistakes that we made with respect to our data, particularly our product data. - Read the rest of this entry »

On a trip to Salzburg a few months ago the airline lost my luggage. I was given the requisite tracking number, a customer service telephone number, and instructions to call the airline in twelve hours if my luggage hadn’t been delivered to the hotel. - Read the rest of this entry »

Despite the occasional lurid headline, medical science seems to be one of the places in which data and data quality processes are so tightly controlled that data errors appear to be rare. (If this weren’t so, we probably wouldn’t trust our doctors.) I suppose that this is not too surprising, because the stakes are so high and the monetary costs of failure exceed those of typical businesses. As a result, the medical profession is forced to undertake procedures to protect data that many businesses would consider excessive and not worth the cost. - Read the rest of this entry »