Navigating the dangerous waters of data management to find a practical solution

Taking on a data management initiative can be a scary proposition.  However, the business benefits are there. Rich, accurate data is the fuel for multiple groups: Sales leaders want better territory planning, marketers want lead-to-account mapping, and operations wants automation to help the business scale. The price of not having a strong data management practice is pretty high. You’ve spent time and resources inputting account and contact data into Microsoft Dynamics 365, but how accurate is that data?

Poor data quality costs organizations an average of $15 million per year, according to Gartner. The scary part is that realizing these benefits without putting a stranglehold on the very departments you are trying to help is a fine line to walk.  Below is a guide to help navigate through the common data management pitfalls and get a process up and running that makes operations shine like the tech wizards they really are.

The Data Situation

Larger enterprises sometimes move forward with a Master Data Management (MDM) approach. This requires a higher level of discipline for controlling, transforming, and standardizing data from disparate systems, and may be overkill for most companies' data management needs.

A newer player (or idea) in the data management game is the customer data platform (CDP).  Forrester recently released a report covering CDPs, although this Hubspot blog