Improving Data Warehouse and Business Information Quality: Methods for Reducing Costs and Increasing Profits

PART Three

Establishing the Information Quality Environment

“The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.”

–VIDAL SASSOON

Information quality improvement is not simply “scrubbing” data to put it into the data warehouse. Information quality is not simply auditing data to measure it. Information quality improvement is:

• Fundamental changes in how the information systems organization defines, develops, and delivers its products and services
• Fundamental changes in how the enterprise operates

These changes are systemic and permeate the entire organization. Sustainable information quality improvement will be accompanied by a change in the way people think and act about their information products. The information quality mind-set is a change from a selfish and competitive spirit, “I create the information I need to do my job,” to a helping and cooperative spirit, “I create the information we need to do our jobs.”

This culture shift is counterintuitive in the hierarchical, downsized organization where employees are strapped for time. However, the evidence reveals that when information producers create complete, reliable information, downstream knowledge workers can use it with trust. As a result they save the costs of having to verify the data, find missing information, and correct inaccurate data. Not only has the organization saved money, it has increased productivity of employees and employee morale, which translates to increased customer satisfaction and ends ...