When it comes to data quality......

Forget the six wise men. More often than not, it's the four dumb men—Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, Nobody—who look after data quality.

Data quality management was an important job and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could do it, but Nobody did. Somebody got angry about it because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realised that Everybody wouldn't do it. In the end, Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could do.

There's no doubt that poor quality data bites deeply into your bottom line.

That makes it a business responsibility, not exclusively an IT or marketing problem.

Poor data quality doesn't fix itself. You have to get out of denial, accept there is a problem and obtain executive sponsorship. Use the right software tools to get data clean and keep it that way.

So what's the solution?

The most cost-efficient and time-saving route to clean data is undoubtedly to use the right software; the return on investment is almost immediate in terms of cost savings on duplicated or undeliverable mailings

By changing your state of mind and taking responsibility for data quality within the organisation, you get your data in the right state, rather than a right state!