Here are three critical mistakes I keep seeing companies make with their data:
Don’t believe quantity makes up for quality
- The sheer volume of data often triggers a dangerous sense of safety
- Having more bad data just means more noise to filter through
- Control quality at data entry points – it’s nearly impossible to fix later
- At dunnhumby, we invested thousands of man-days yearly in data cleansing, and our data schema were the foundation of our success. It was an investment, not a cost
Don’t skip the foundation work
- Proper data governance isn’t red tape – it’s your insurance policy
- When handling billions of transactions, governance determines success or failure
- No amount of smart analytics can compensate for poor data architecture
- Better to go slower now than rebuild everything in 12 months
Don’t build without clear business goals
- “We need a data lake” is not a business case
- Start with the problem you’re solving, not the technology
- If you can’t explain the ROI in one sentence, rethink your approach
- The best data strategy is the one that delivers measurable business value
Your expensive data lesson? I’d love to hear it.
#Data #Analytics #DigitalTransformation #ProductStrategy