Looking at the Quality of Data
and Information
Chapter 6 Pages 128-130
Chapter 6 Pages 139-140
Business decisions are only as good as the
quality of the information used to make them.
You never want to find yourself using technology
to help you make a bad decision faster
.
BUSINESS DRIVEN MIS –
DETERMINING
INFORMATION QUALITY
ISSUES
Information Revolution - Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=-4CV05HyAbM
Common Characteristics of HighQuality Information
Real-time IT systems: faster, more effective decisions, smaller
inventories, easier to track performance
Low-Quality Information
Primary Sources of Low-Quality Information
1. Customers intentionally enter inaccurate data to protect privacy.
2. Different entry standards and formats
3. Operators enter abbreviated or erroneous data by accident or to save time.
4. Third party and external information contains inconsistencies, inaccuracies
and errors
At least 14 examples of Low-Quality
Information
Customer ID
Customer First
Name
Customer Last
Name
Address
City
State
Zip
Phone
1771
Larry
Shimk
143 S.
Denver
NY
178908
911
1771
Caroline
Shimk
143 N. West St.
Buffalo
NY
14321
716-333-4567
1772
Shimk
Caroline
143 N. West St.
Buffalo
NY
14321
716-333-4567
1772
Heather
Schwiter
55 N. W. S. Miss
LaGrange
GA
14321
716-333-4567
1772
Debbie
Fernandez
S. Main St.
Denver
CO
80252
333-8965
1772
Debbie
Fernandez
S. Main St.
Denver
CO
80252
333-8965
1773
Justin
Justin
34 Kerry Rd.
Littleton
CO
98987
716-67-9087
1774
Pam
66 S. Carlton
North Glen
CO
98765
343-456-6857
Potential business effects of using
low-quality information
1. Inability to accurately track customers.
2. Difficulty identifying valuable customers and/or difficulty building
strong customer relationships.
3. Inability to identify selling opportunities.
4. Marketing to nonexistent customers.
5. Difficulty tracking revenue.
6. Might order too much inventory from a supplier based on inaccurate
orders.
7. Instead of sending an expensive promotional item to your best
customers, it goes to the wrong address.
High-quality information can significantly improve the chances of
making a good decision, which can directly impact an organization's
bottom line
Maintaining Quality Information in a Data
Warehouse is extremely important
Pulled from many different sources, some of which are external to your
organization. Information may be inconsistent or just plain wrong.
Information cleansing or scrubbing is a process that weeds out and
fixes or discards inconsistent, incomplete or incorrect information.
Cleansing uses specialized software tools to
analyze, standardize, correct, match and consolidate
information in a data warehouse.
Accurate vs Complete Information
Is it right/correct VS Is it all there/no blanks?
Perfect Information??
• 100% accurate and complete = too expensive & time consuming to produce
– Birthdate 2/31/2014 (complete but not accurate)
– Address containing Manhattan, KS, but no zip code (accurate, but not complete)
– Some companies are willing to go as low as 20% complete to find BI
– Few organizations go below 50% accurate – info is useless if not accurate.
– Perfect information vs cost and time
– Most organizations determine a percentage high enough
to make good decisions at a reasonable cost,
such as 85 percent accurate and 65 percent complete