Data Quality

CHAPTER 2Business Data

INTRODUCTION

Today, data touches every facet of the business value chain. For example, in the insurance sector, data impacts policyholders, agents, adjusters, appraisers, actuaries, and others in offering personalized insurance policies, reduced risk management, optimized support for underwriting decisions, and faster claims processing and settlement and more. In the oil and gas sector, companies use enormous amounts of data for regulatory complacence and to utilize assets better, make more informed decisions to innovate exploration and production, make sense of operational data from the plant floor, improve supply chains, and more. eCommerce and retail businesses use data to optimize their customer service and offer enhanced shopping and channel experiences leading to better customer satisfaction and retention. Overall, data helps businesses to understand customer needs, predict customer behavior patterns, improve the quality of products and services, reduce expenses and costs, mitigate risks, develop new products and services, enhance employee engagement, and more. All these improvements are possible only when there is quality data.

DATA IN BUSINESS

It is often said, no matter what industry you are in, business success and growth come down to three fundamental questions:

1. Who are the valuable or profitable customers?
2. How can one retain (and grow from) these valuable customers?
3. How can one find more of them?

The answers to these fundamental questions, ...