Many businesses are sitting on an abundance of data, but without proper data quality and management, the data is virtually useless.

Poor data quality can manifest as inaccurate data, irrelevant data, incomplete data and more, costing businesses and organizations both money and time. Solving the problem of how to consolidate both old and incoming data without breaking the bank or consuming too many resources has left companies scratching their heads.

“I would say that every Fortune 100 or even Fortune 1000 probably considers themselves a data-driven business at this point, which means they’re going to make decisions quickly based on data,” said Kirk Haslbeck (pictured), vice president of engineering at Collibra NV. “And if we pull that thread a little bit, what about what’s the cost of making decisions on incorrect data?”

Haslbeck spoke with John Walls, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during the Data Citizens ’21 event. They discussed the evolution of data quality, Collibra’s approach to managing data quality, steps businesses should take to start ensuring ideal data quality and more. (* Disclosure below.)

Taking the first steps

It’s not just the volume of data available that makes maintaining data quality a necessity, but the transparency of the data as well.

“You look at your house on Zillow and you find out it’s mislabeled, it doesn’t have the right bedrooms,” Haslbeck said. “Maybe humans are entering into the listings, and as data becomes more available visually we’re more critical of it.”

Additionally, with COVID accelerating cloud migration adoption, businesses are porting their data into new systems, which carries a risk of creating errors.

Collibra is equipped to assist companies with maintaining and improving data quality as they transition into the cloud, with Haslbeck supplying viewers with a few tips on where to begin.

“Do the napkin math of all the tables, all the files, all the Kafka messages, all of the columns and fields and attributes and multiply that out and try to figure out how you would get coverage,” he stated. “If you take a deeper look at the solution that we’re providing to the market, we’re predicting to you what the correct value is, and it’s a complete paradigm shift — much more scientific. But it’s much more powerful to get you to the end answer more quickly instead of just going through break records.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Data Citizens ’21 event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Data Citizens ’21. Neither Collibra NV, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE