Across all of the different technologies used to run your business, there’s a lot of data to organize and manage. Master data management is a method for not only organizing and storing data but also making sure it is consistent and uniform across different software platforms and storage locations.
A master data record plays a critical role in ensuring that the data you’re using for business decisions is accurate. If your data is bad, it can’t be relied upon for business decisions. Data management can validate that data and ensure it is fit to inform the decisioning process.
Data uniformity is also key when different technologies are using your business data at the same time for different purposes. Suppose you have multiple copies of customer data being used by different marketing technologies. If one solution is sending emails to a customer named “Richard Brown” while another is executing direct mail campaigns that refer to the same customer as “Rich Brown,” they are going to notice—and it’s not going to make them feel valued by your company.
That’s just one of thousands of examples of why a master data set is key for your business. With effective master data management, you can streamline operations, reduce data errors, and improve both efficiency and performance for any business function relying on this stored data.
If you’re looking for ways to become even more effective at data management, here are six tips that will make a difference.
1. Implement steps to “clean” master data.
Dirty data can come in many different forms for your business. In addition to data entry errors, some inaccuracies are introduced during the address and form validation processes.
Your organization can take simple steps to reduce the risk of duplication and produce clean data records for your master data sets. Your website can connect to the U.S. Postal Service’s to ensure that addresses are both accurate and standardized, and online forms can be built with drop-down menus and other features designed to reduce data entry errors, resulting in clean data your business can rely on.
