Poor data quality stymies local business

Gary Allemann, quoted in Business Day, says that poor data quality affects the ability of 70% to 80% of South African companies to operate efficiently.

In the financial services and insurance sectors regulations place stringent demands on organisations to ensure that data is correct. Solvency II are the regulations that are being implemented to govern the global insurance industry.  Like the existing Basel II Accord, which impacts on the banking sector, Solvency II requires organisations to prove that the data on which their reporting is based is accurate.

If there are inconsistencies in the data then the bank or insurance company concerend must measure risk based on the worst case scenario - which as a negative impact on the cpaital holding requirement, and ultimately on profit.

"When management thinks their reports are accurate, and they are not, it is more dangerous than knowing they are wrong," says Allemann.

For example, one governement department was under the impression from reports that 87% of its suppliers were BEE compliant. When the quality of the data was examined, they discovered that for mire than 70% of the records the field for recording BEE status was empty.

"We have a number of clients that are presenting a data quality score as a key metric in support of the BI projects.  Business users deserve to know how reliable the metrics are that they are using to drive critical decisions."