Still working with old records?
Probably you are at risk of facing huge GDPR penalties!
To perform data analytics, you must have fresh data. Otherwise, you'll end up having distorted data insights that will be useless. Plus, it'll attract fines.
Data acts as the lifeblood of analytics. Almost all important business decisions are taken based on available data insights. But, data quality gets poor with time. That's why you need to know the data cleaning importance and benefits of reviving data quality.
Clean data adds value to business. It generates accurate data insights to make balanced decisions. Proper cleansing of the data is important and it follows some principles and steps. Let's elaborate on all these along with the benefits and the basics in this piece.
Why Data Cleaning is Important?
What is Data Cleaning its Importance and Benefits it includes;
Data Cleaning is Non-negotiable – See Why
Maintaining the consistency of the data is important otherwise you'll end up losing control over your operation. That's why data cleansing becomes non-negotiable.
But wait! There's more.
What is Data Cleansing and Importance of Data Cleansing
Sometimes data algorithms generate incorrect results which may appear as correct. If my mistake, you started working with this data, the outcome will be devastating. Many businesses in the past have suffered huge losses because of this one mistake.
Remember the famous Samsung incident? As per the IEEE report, Samsung issued a $105 billion share dividend to workers (just by mistake). Instead of paying 1000 won per share as a dividend, the company paid 1000 securities to each individual. Obviously, it was an incident and a very good example to understand data cleaning importance and benefits.
Was that mistake avoidable? The answer is yes, it was avoidable if the data entry experts used the latest data while paying the dividends. As discussed before, sometimes data appears as correct but it's actually incorrect. Thus, data cleansing is a non-negotiable thing and only through this, companies can avoid such incidents.
Data cleaning tools & Software
In recent times, companies have focused more on data cleansing seriously. That's the reason why software services for data cleansing operations are booming across industries. Some of the software is available on an open-source model while some you need to buy a subscription to use them.
TIBCO: It's a SaaS data cleansing tool that provides cloud-based solutions. This tool is best for start-ups and small companies.
Melissa: With in-built data marketing features, this excellent data cleansing tool minimizes the efforts of data collection. It provides fast data cleansing and provides other tasks.
WinPure: Among the cheapest options, WinPure cleans large amounts of data under budget-friendly options.
OpenRefine: This open-source tool helps you visualize your data after thoroughly cleansing. Its user-friendly interface and easy application make it the best.
Let's realize the overwhelming benefits of Data Cleansing!
Better decisions
Increased productivity
Increase revenue
Improved data accuracy
Boost customer acquisition
Regulatory compliance
Reduced costs
Address missing data
Increased efficiency
Customer relationship management
Correct structural errors
Efficient email campaigns
Eliminates outliers
Enhanced customer experience
Error prevention
Facilitates data integration
Remove duplicate contacts
Removes irrelevant information
Streamline business practices
Use your data for multichannel purposes
To realize all these data cleaning importance and benefits, you need to use the best methods and principles. Let's find out the best approaches in the following section.
Best Practices of Data Cleansing
First of all, removing bad data from your database does not require to follow any strict database. However, finding out which data becomes bad is the main part here. For this, you have to follow a set of principles, which goes like this;
In-house or delegate
Now, that you understand the data cleaning importance and benefits completely, you need to figure out the execution plan. Hiring a team on-site is a good option but outsourcing data entry services is far better and cost-friendly. This way, you can bring expertise to the operation as well as save money for data cleansing. Almost all companies are trying outsourcing services nowadays after realizing its numerous benefits.
The matter is completely up to you!