Data is always at the core of every business and process, but data is not always perfect, and it can take time and effort to properly identify when something has gone wrong.

                We have all seen inconsistent, repeated, or often misspelled information that can affect the business by complicating human interaction or automated processes running in the background, generating additional expenses while reducing productivity and efficiency.

                Data scrubbing has the main objective of preventing data from becoming unreadable or unusable in the broader sense; this is achieved by the implementation of continuously running processes in the background such as:

• Consolidation of data (removing duplicate or redundant information)
• Correction of inconsistencies (ensuring that all data in the respective fields or locations follow a set standard as established by the business)
• Data integrity (ensuring no data corruption or data is missing)

Achieving effective data scrubbing can be a long and arduous task but one that comes with several benefits for the business; primarily, this must be achieved through agreement from all departments involved to ensure data is consistent and useful.

Once this is achieved, the implementation on the back end is performed to ensure data is available to all parties through the agreed standard; this may also include information from several databases in different
formats or with different pieces of information.

Integration and implementation of other tools in the data scrubbing process can achieve additional benefits such as verification of data, such as addresses or other personal information when possible, to ensure that these match with data that is publicly available.

Note that the process of data scrubbing can be performed at any level, coming from data that is being ingested, to information at rest in a file, database, or other formats in which it may be available or in its final location, although it is always preferred to be done before it reaches its destination for ease of handling.

Is your data scrubbing process working for you, or are you looking to implement such a process in your business?

We can help you with this and more; contact us for a free evaluation of your current needs, and we will help you build a work plan for the implementation of a better data scrubbing process that ensures your data is really speaking to you.