| | SEPTEMBER 20228CIOReviewIN MY OPINIONDATA QUALITY MANAGEMENT IMPROVES ORGANIZATIONAL KNOWLEDGEIt is commonplace to say that data is an "asset," but most organizations do not treat data as they treat their other assets. They are unaware of the quantity or condition of their data. The organizations create data for their immediate needs and without considering the potential for a broader use. Moreover, they do not differentiate between data that is valuable or the one that has little importance. Few provide guidance for employees about how to get value from data. Fewer still recognize the costs of low-quality data or the benefits of high-quality data.The failure to manage data as an asset prevents organizations from taking advantage of the knowledge and insight they could gain from their data and the ways that they can derive value from their data. In many organizations, lack of understanding of their own data is a huge blind spot, which is also a terrible waste of resources. Data quality management helps address this blind spot. At its simplest, data quality management is the application of product quality management methodologies to data. It aims to improve the quality of data and to sustain the levels of data quality that an organization needs to deliver on its mission and serve its customers, regardless of how an organization defines its mission and customers. Data quality practitioners must help the organization answer and act on the findings from three fundamental questions: · What do we mean by high-quality data?· How do we detect low-quality or poor-quality data? · What action we take when data does not meet quality standards? To answer these questions, data quality practitioners must help the organization: · Define Expectations for Quality in the form of standards, rules, models, and requirements from data consumers. Defining standards is a means of clarifying expectations for quality so that these expectations can be met.By Laura Sebastian-Coleman, Ph.D. Data Quality Director, PrudentialLaura Sebastian-Coleman
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