Don’t Let Dirty Data Drag You Down

Data is a key differentiator for enterprise companies. In a sales organization, data analysis can help managers find overlooked prospects, learn which reps need more training, and prioritize leads. But useful, actionable insights come only from proper measurement. Measuring the wrong thing, measuring inaccurately, and asking the wrong questions will get companies nowhere fast.

The trouble with dirty data

With the rise of mobile adoption, companies can collect more data than ever before—but that means more room for inaccuracy. Experian found 92 percent of companies suspect some of their data might be inaccurate—as much as 26 percent of the information they’ve collected, in fact.

The financial implications are obvious. Businesses could increase their profits by an average of 15 percent if their data were of the highest quality. And retail companies that get the most out of their data have the potential to earn $94 billion more in revenue than companies that don’t make it a priority. Why leave so much money on the table?

Good analysis starts with the right questions and the right metrics

Data won’t show what you’re getting right (or what you’re doing wrong) unless you’re correlating it to the right questions. For example:

• What types of leads do you need?
• Do you need more leads driven by sales, by marketing, or by partners?
• How many leads do you need to achieve your specific goal?

And so on. If your sales organization establishes standard metrics to track pipeline, productivity, and performance, it’s easier to answer questions like these.

Now is the time to evaluate your organization’s data proficiency and take steps toward data cleanliness. Your efforts to improve the health of your database—such as knowing what data exists, who can access it, and where the redundancies are—will add significant value, no matter how small.

Data is useful only if you know how to use it

One thing that separates 21st-century sales organizations from their predecessors is data management and integration. Companies spent an average of $7.4M on data-related initiatives in 2015, according to estimates. But if leaders don’t know how to comprehend and work from the data they collect, achieving those initiatives is nearly impossible.

Remarkably, 42 percent of find it difficult to draw insights from data. Nearly half the marketing, sales, and research personnel in the 300 US enterprise organizations surveyed have trouble when it comes to understanding what’s at the core of modern sales strategy. We need to fix what’s broken.

Intelligent CRM software provides real-time views into key metrics through fully customizable, interactive dashboards. With the right software—and clean data—an analyst isn’t always necessary. Microsoft Dynamics CRM empowers people at every level of an organization to have a positive and meaningful impact by providing insights that are relevant to their unique roles.

With a focus on clean data, your sales organization can be confident that analytics-led decisions are taking you in the right direction—toward bigger deals and increased efficiency.