subject: Data Cleansing - Tracking the Who, Where and When for Accurate Data [print this page] Data Cleansing - Tracking the Who, Where and When for Accurate Data
I received some mail in the post a few days ago, and when I looked at who it was addressed to on the envelope, I noticed that it wasn't my name. Nor was it any name of anyone who currently lives in the household. It was in fact addressed to someone who had lived in the property more than ten years ago and had not lived there since.
What does this actually tell us? Well, it may tell us that those responsible for getting mail redirected had not done their job, or it could tell us that I had not sent mail like this back and informed the senders that this person or persons no longer lived at the address in question.
However, this was not the case, at least as far as the latter idea is concerned, so there must be another problem. Somebody somewhere had not updated their data and or data systems in a very long time!
We live in a fast moving, ever changing world that relies almost completely on data. Data that accumulates over years, data that changes with great frequency and data that is crucially important to people, let alone often very private. People in every corner of the globe, rely on others storing complete and accurate data about them.
Think of all the financial claims (in various sectors) that are made every single day. Forms filled in, information and data provided and the outcome crucial to the lives of individuals, not only for certain needs to be met but in some cases for survival itself.
Accurate data keeping is absolutely crucial to the smooth running of our societies and it is the responsibility of those that keep and store the data to ensure this is accomplished.
Data cleansing which is also sometimes referred to as data cleaning or data scrubbing is a system that scans data for accuracy and errors, and where faults are detected, to correct and remove the data in question.
It is highly recommended that data cleansing is performed regularly to maintain the accuracy of the data. It is quite clear that if these systems had been correctly installed and in operation at the companies who send mail to people at addresses they have not lived in for more than a decade that the problems would not have arisen.
The wasted time, money and effort spent getting a piece of mail to the right person at the right address and at the right time, could and should have been avoided with proper data cleansing.
