Big data brings many advantages, and, as a result, businesses are increasingly exploring its benefits. Organizations are collecting data on everything from their products to business operations, consumers, and more—driving far better-informed decision-making than ever before.
While data can help companies make improvements, it also comes with a risk. You may be duplicating data and this often creates challenges.
So, what are the challenges of duplicate data? We’ll look at some ways data duplication may be harming your business instead of helping it grow.
What is Duplicate Data
If you’re not sure what the term duplicate data means, the explanation is fairly straightforward. Duplicate data occurs when information on a file is shared with another one. A common reason duplicate data occurs is when you’re transferring data between different systems.
You can recreate the entire file or only partial sections. If you’re dealing with partial duplicate data, you may have multiple copies of a consumer’s name, address, email, and phone number but the rest of the information doesn’t match the other file.
Every time you generate a report, the duplicate data often shows up as inaccuracies. Since your data is technically dirty, it’s difficult for it to help businesses make smart decisions.
How Duplicate Data Can Drag Down Your Business
Companies use data to make vital decisions about everything from the type and amount of inventory to stock to scheduling and operations. Data drives businesses and when it’s duplicated, your organization can run into problems. Here’s a look at some of the ways duplicate data can harm your business.
Higher Costs and Lost Income
Duplicate data may be costing your business money and causing it to lose income. For example, if you’re using dirty data to create a product catalog to send to your customers, chances are that some consumers are going to receive duplicate copies.
Your company is wasting money on printing and shipping costs. After all, your customers only need and want one copy of your catalog. Sending multiple copies can annoy consumers, turning them off from supporting your business.
Consumers may even view the duplicate catalogs as a mistake, causing them to lose trust in your brand. If your business can’t create an accurate mailing list, how can customers be assured errors aren’t going to occur with their orders?
Personalization is Difficult
Consumers don’t want to be viewed as a number by businesses they support. They want to feel like an integral part of the company where they are respected. Don’t forget about the customer’s overall experience. The experience a consumer has with your business often determines if your company is one they’re going to support in the future.
To provide an exceptional customer experience, businesses often turn to big data. However, when you’re dealing with duplicate data it’s almost impossible to figure out which areas need improving. You need clean and accurate data.
An example is when a consumer makes a one-time purchase—this isn’t an item they’re likely to purchase again but your duplicate data indicates the product is a consumer favorite. As part of your marketing campaign, you send the consumer discounts toward the purchase of this item.
Not only is your marketing campaign falling flat, but your customers may realize your business doesn’t know them at all—which can drive them to your competitors.
Increased Storage Costs
Have you ever thought about the costs of storing duplicate data? There’s only so much storage space on your servers. Moving your data to the cloud is an option, and it has benefits. Storing data in the cloud can help protect the information if the power goes down at the facility. Most business continuity plans include cloud storage.
Even though the cloud is virtually limitless, your storage space isn’t. Even if you’re not purchasing additional servers for their storage space, you still need to pay to upgrade your cloud account.
So, how much space is your duplicate data taking up? Every organization is different but the average email takes up around 1 MB of storage space. Just imagine the amount of storage you’ll need if your business is regularly sending out 100 or more duplicate emails every day or two.
Decrease in Productivity
Businesses know that productivity and profits go hand-in-hand. When productivity drops, so do your profits. Your company works hard to keep personnel engaged and employee morale is usually pretty high. Everyone is relatively satisfied with their jobs, so why is productivity tanking?
The answer may be due to duplicate data; going through clean data, even using analytics software, can be time-consuming. Now, add in the duplicate data and your team can spend days instead of hours sifting through the information. This is valuable time your team could be spending working on other projects.
You may also miss important deadlines to make company decisions. Maybe you’re planning a sale and need the data to know how much inventory should be on hand to meet customer demand.
Potentially Miss Out on Sale Opportunities
You often use your data to identify leads. These are usually consumers who haven’t become customers. If you’re sending your sales team inaccurate data, there’s a good chance they’ll focus on cultivating the wrong lead. How can a lead be wrong? This is a lead that isn’t going to generate a sale.
An example is if your business sells organic meat and your data is sending you to pursue a lead that’s a vegetarian. The chances of you selling organic meat to a vegetarian are pretty slim. If your team was working with accurate data, this lead wouldn’t have popped up. Instead, your sales department would be tracking down leads that are more likely to turn into sales.
Create Confusion with Customers
Using inaccurate data to connect with customers typically leads to confusion. Consumers may be wondering why they’re receiving sales prompts for products they never intend on purchasing. Your customer service desk may soon be overwhelmed by confused consumers, all asking plenty of questions.
Eliminating Duplicate Data Can Help Your Business Grow
Eliminating duplicate data is a process, and it can be time-consuming. However, when your company is working with clean data, everything from customer satisfaction to profits tends to increase.
With accurate data, decision-making becomes more straightforward, leading to more efficient operations. Moreover, clean data reduces errors and misunderstandings, enhancing overall productivity and fostering a more reliable business environment.