This paper examines the nature, cause and impact of data quality problems in typical IT system implementations. It argues that the extent and impact of poor data quality is largely misunderstood and often ignored.

Data quality problems cost organizations millions of dollars, waste vast amounts of time and resources, and deceive management into making very poor decisions. Many executives and managers dramatically underestimate the tremendous damage poor quality data inflicts on their organization each year. This, coupled with a lack of understanding regarding how to solve data quality problems, often leads management to ignore this critical issue.

Data is the life-blood of technology systems. While hardware and software are the infrastructure, the veins and arteries of a system, it is the data that actually gives the system life. Without data to fuel the systems the technology is of no value. Yet, many organizations focus the majority of their attention on installing servers and developing applications while paying little or no attention to ensuring data is consistently of the highest quality.