Importance of Database Cleansing

Data is the lifeline for any business. Over time, businesses and individuals accumulate a lot of data. Eventually, the data becomes outdated and has to be checked. Also, there is a redundancy in the data that would result due to the following reasons:

• Improper data loading
• Inappropriate or insufficient data validation process.

Also, data values change eventually due to change happening in the internal and external environment.

You have to keep the data most relevant and accurate. 

Data cleaning is a process in which you check all of the data within the system and either remove or update information, which is 

• Incomplete
• Duplicate
• Irrelevant
• Improperly formatted
• Outdated

Though data cleansing involves deleting information, the major focus is on the update and making correction to the data. Also, it performs data consolidation to ensure that the system works effectively and efficiently. 

Data cleansing is usually performed as a one-time activity, and it may take a long time if the data volume is huge. Hence, it is recommended to do it regularly. How often you do it depends on the number of anomalies.

Data cleansing is a three-fold business-critical activity

Experts say that data cleansing is a business-critical part of data management. When a huge volume of data is there in the system about customers and prospects, information can become outdated quickly.

Data cleansing involves a review of all the data within a database to remove or update incomplete, improperly formatted, irrelevant, or duplicate data.

Forbes says that almost 30% of business leaders are unaware of the data accuracy, making data cleansing a worthwhile activity for most organizations.

Data cleansing is a three-fold activity:

• It contains maintenance of information for existing customers
• It contains maintenance of information to support business processes
• It contains maintenance of information to support compliance  

Why is Data Cleansing important?

You must have heard that data cleansing is incredibly important for individuals as well as businesses. But why does it get so much importance? 

Let us about some wide-reaching benefits of regular and structured data cleansing across the organization.

• Avoid costly errors: When you perform data cleansing, it avoids the costs cropping up due to processing errors, troubleshooting, or correcting the improper data. For example, when correcting all incorrect addresses, you avoid the efforts in sending deliveries to wrong customers or expensive redeliveries. 
• Ensure work through multiple channels: It becomes easy to perform multichannel customer data management easy once you perform data cleansing. By data cleansing every byte of customer data gets accurate. It allows you to successfully execute contact strategies across different channels.
• Enhance customer acquisition process: When an organization has a well-maintained set of data, it is best placed to develop list of prospects using the correct set of data. It boosts the efficiency of customer acquisition and onboarding operations.
• Improve the decision-making process: Nothing enhances the decision-making process more than clean data. It supports all key analytics that offers you better insights to make more well-informed decisions.
• Increase the productivity of your employees  : Since data cleaning improves the quality of data, it uplifts your productivity. By removing incorrect data or updating, you have information of higher quality. Your people will not struggle with incomplete or inappropriate data. Their productivity will increase. You waste time more in sending emails to uninterested or non-existing contacts. Data cleansing saves that time.
• Increase revenue: When the data is clean, you can expect better results and higher ROI when you run marketing and communication campaigns. Your messages are delivered in consistent and targeted manner. When you get better responses and interactions, you drive revenue and achieve overall business goals. Clean data helps marketers to find out high-profile prospects easily. Well-segmented data set sends personalized messages to get high-value businesses.
• Reduce wastage and save money: When data cleansing is performed, it reduces waste associated with physical marketing strategies. Your updated data list takes you to the people with a genuine interest in your message. It reduces the possibility of your emails being thrown away without reading. You save on the amount of printing and distribution needed for mailing.
• Brand building: When your communication reaches the right audience, your market reputation enhances.  Your brand integrity and reputation get maintained.
• Reduce compliance risk:  Another important benefit of data cleansing is to minimize your compliance risks. Regular cleansing of the database helps an organization in keeping tabs on customer contact permissions. It also ensures that people who have opted out of communication are not contacted by you.

Conclusion

Data cleansing is an important process of removing clutter and unwanted data from the database. It is a process to bring qualitative improvement in the data. By removing unwanted things and updating old details, your database remains in a healthy state and compliant to legal obligations. Several benefits can be obtained by performing regular data cleansing.