Massive Data Quality Problems
"Most BI implementations fall below the midpoint on the scale of success," says Ted Friedman, an analyst with Gartner, in a recent piece in CIO Magazine. One of the key reasons for such lackluster outcomes, he argues, is poor data quality. "Data quality remains a very overlooked issue in business intelligence, but a massive one. I continue to see failures due to a lack of attention to data quality."
Where is Edwards Deming when you need him? It is apparent that the BI world will continue to be hobbled by this persistent problem. If data -- the fundamental building block of intelligence -- is untrustworthy, well, then everything based on it is questionable. That is why the issue of data quality will continue to grow in importance and companies will be forced to invest more actively in efforts to ensure their data stores and data warehouses are well maintained.