Data Duplication is a Threat!

Data duplication

In the customer-driven world, the prowess to use customer data or insights is of vital importance. And why not since it helps businesses shape products or services along with the buying experience. The confluence of ever-evolving digital landscapes and trends is transforming the role of data analytics from just a means to grab the customer details to finding the missed steps that can engage customers better than before, including data duplication.. 

To put it simply. It’s more about customer behavioral insights that help organizations outperform their peers by more than 80% in growth (in terms of sales) and more than 20% in the overall margin. Clearly, if the data is not credible enough, everything right from pitching to execution will turn out to be a complete waste of time, energy, and money. 

Can you afford to do so? Obviously, it will be a “No.” Don’t know what it is all about? Keep scrolling and find out yourself. 

Understanding Duplicate Data

Data duplication or redundancy is nothing but the availability of two or multiple copies of the same data at a single or different platform. As simple as that. The most common type is referred to as partial duplicate, where the records contain the same name, phone, number, or email, or other attachments but are accompanied by other files or data that are non-matching. 

Problems Your Business Will Face Due to Data Duplication

Data duplication may not seem like a problem initially, but since companies are leveraging data insights to shape their IT infrastructure and the business environment, it could soon become a hurdle. Why? Because it will leave you with corrupt reports or analytics that will impact your company’s growth. 

Besides this, data redundancy over time can eat a massive chunk of your storage space. This goes without saying that a lesser storage space often slows the systems, further extending your timelines to find the data. Hence, causing a slowdown in productivity and efficiency. 

Let’s take a moment to understand the implications of data redundancy. 

Wasted Marketing Funds

Did you know that duplicate data costs U.S. businesses around $611 billion per year? Sometimes the redundancy goes up to 30%, making it even more harmful for businesses. And when it comes to marketing strategies, this duplicate data might impact your customization or personalization efforts. 

Hence, becoming a cause of concern since it will start killing your conversion rates. It doesn’t end here. Your marketing teams will have to spend more time on their devices to screen the files and photos instead of focusing on the crucial things. 

Blurred Customer Tracking

Since everything revolves around data in today’s business dynamics, starting from marketing, sales, customer support, the chances are high that you end up sharing the same data. So, your marketing teams might be using the same data that your customer success support uses. 

However, a lack of single customer data might be a cause of concern throughout the customer lifecycle. This reduces your effectiveness as an enterprise as you won’t be able to deal with your customers the way they might be expecting. 

Inaccurate Personalization Efforts 

It is no more a surprise that customers love organizations who make an effort to make them feel special. And to do that, more than 60% of companies rely on the data to target or segment consumers. Similarly, more than 70% of customers reportedly even paid more when a company offered personalized service. 

If you are not confident enough about your data, it will eventually be tiresome for your teams to inject customization into every aspect of your business processes. 

Impacts The Overall Productivity 

Since everyone is trying to fix the data issues, they will step away from doing the essential tasks and start doing the time-consuming data compilation work. With thousands of different records, it might even take weeks to go through everything. And you can’t be too sure that you will not miss the duplicate data again. Or who knows, you might end up deleting the crucial data in the process of deleting redundant data?

All of this would turn out to be an expensive affair in terms of time used and cost incurred. 

All in all- It Will Harm Your Data-backed Decision Making Process

Duplicate data might only be a snapshot of a moment. But if you have multiple records of the same customer, you might end up delivering entirely different messages to customers.

For instance, the customer who might have already proceeded to the end of the marketing funnel, sending them collateral that’s intended for pitching your product at the initial stage might impact their buying decision. Even a great message to the wrong person would be fatal for your business growth. 

Conclusion

With so many new technologies at your disposal, it is easy to access a plethora of information. However, data entry and transforming that data into actionable insight is not as easy as you think. And if your starting point is flawed, no matter how much you try, you’re bound to fail. 

Hence, take a keen interest in your data, whether it’s customer data or marketing collaterals, to avoid any data redundancies and grow your business. 

Data duplication article and permission to publish here provided by Imala Green. Originally written for Supply Chain Game Changer and published on April 2, 2021.