Achieving Data Excellence 

3 Golden Rules For Data Quality 

In this podcast, our hosts Oliver Rear and David Holmes join Colin Sales from 3C Consultants to discuss Achieving Data Excellence

Our conversation was all about data excellence, data accuracy, and more specifically data quality. Colin and the guys at 3C focus mainly on the housing sector but aim to work with a wider range of different sectors across the UK in the near future. Even if you are not in the housing sector there are tons of useful takeaways in this episode, you can find all the links to the documents mentioned in the discussion at the bottom of the page below.

Ultimately, 3C’s business focus is information. Information governance is the quality of that information, its accuracy, and the value that you can draw from that. In this session, we share details on why it’s important to focus on the details and how mishandling data can be worse than never collecting it at all.

Colin made a great reference to a Charles Darwin quote:

“It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself.”

The statement above is more true now than it ever has been, we are developing new technology and new ways of working every day and if organisations are not willing to adapt they risk being at a major loss. People used to refer to data as ‘the new oil’, something incredibly valuable, tradeable and extremely useful for a wide range of reasons. Data is now being referred to as ‘the new air’ if you consider how the reference has changed it provides an insight into how much more importance has been placed on the accurate and detail focussed collection of data. Without oil, you can just about get by, without water you won’t last long at all. Data is everywhere but quality data is hard to come by and once you find it, the best data will be accurate and embellished, it needs to provide you with as much information as possible so you are able to extract as much value as possible for as long as you have permission to hold that data.

Colin made quite a powerful statement early on in the discussion that we found thought-provoking:

“When we think of IT we think of computers, networks or software, we rarely focus on the Information side of the abbreviation. We’ are starting to see is a shift from the ‘T’ to the ‘I’ with way more people understanding the real value in data” 

And he’s right! When we think of IT, 99% of us think about technology, the information is barely an afterthought however, in recent years it has fastly become the most valuable asset to any business and having the correct data, collected thoughtfully and with a keen focus on detail and accuracy is crucial to growing or creating a business of any kind.

Ultimately Colin comes to the conclusion that marketing and analytics will be incredibly important in the near future and that now is the best time to get to grips with data excellence to understand how you can get the most out of your data and collaborate with your creative teams to bring in real results.

This episode was recorded as part of our Data Protection People Podcast which is available on 10+ audio streaming platforms including Spotify and Apple Music. We have over 950+ subscribers with 100’s of listeners joining us live each and every week, if you would like to sign up and become part of our community, where you will benefit from event invites, news updates, notifications on changes to data protection legislation, podcasts, whitepapers and much reach out to one of the team or visit our events page and sign up for one of the many amazing events we have on the horizon.

To download 3C Consultants Data Maturity Framework, click here.

Written and transcribed by Myles Dacres