How the quality of data can impact your business

Data is a growth accelerator for businesses and has become « an indisputable strategic advantage¹ ».

If data is mismanaged it can have a negative impact on a business's performance leading to loss of sales, increased costs, or unhappy customers…

It is possible to avoid this by equipping your business with a solution such as PIM (Product Information Management) to ensure that your data is managed efficiently.

Discover the impacts that poor quality data can have on your company's performance and how PIM can save the day.

The importance of data in business

The volumes of data within a company are constantly on the rise, increasing by around 56% per year².

This increase can be seen as both a challenge and an opportunity for a business. Those with efficient data management systems can make the best decisions on all levels: operations, sales, marketing… and can have a better understanding³ of their customers which will improve customer relations generally³.

The impacts of poor data quality on performance

Reduced sales efficiency

Poor-quality data has a negative impact on any targeting strategies implemented by your sales teams. 49% of those questioned⁴ feel that these strategy errors have a direct negative impact on the image of a business.

They also have a negative impact on sales as 40% of lead-related data⁵ is either incorrect, incomplete or duplicate and 19% of businesses⁶ have lost customers for this reason.

An increase in discontented customers

Shoppers expect to access high-quality data relating to products including: high res photos, detailed marketing descriptions, and clear and precise technical features. 94% of shoppers⁶ consider this to be an important part of their online shopping experience.

If they have no guarantee of this quality, they will have no qualms about abandoning an online purchase. 70% of shoppers⁷ have left a product page for this reason and 53%⁶ are quick to switch to another brand.

Increased costs

Every year, poor quality data costs businesses an average of 12.9 million dollars³ and is a heavy burden on finances, people and operations:

• Penalties from incorrect data
• Increased product returns
• Reduced productivity among teams
• Loss in revenue…

Poor data quality can result in losses of 15 to 25% in revenue⁸.

Poor decision making

According to 80% of CEOs data⁹ is an essential element in the strategic decision-making process.

However, 84% of CEOs¹⁰ are concerned about the quality of data on which they are basing their decisions every day and are aware of the risks of multiplying strategic errors by targeting the wrong audience, investing in off base markets, or allocating resources inefficiently.

Improve the quality of your data with PIM

The difficulties of data management for businesses

Very often, businesses use multiple software solutions to try to manage their data: ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM (Customer Relationship Management), files in various formats (Excel, XML, Json…) and 45% of them¹¹ do not have the necessary tools to ensure the quality of this data. This multiplication of solutions leads to « inconsistencies¹¹ » and/or « information that is contradictory¹² » from one database to another.

Many businesses also find it difficult to process data in complex formats as 48% of businesses¹¹ do not have the necessary expertise, which leads to problems of « non‑compliance¹² » with regulations and the associated extra costs.

The result is that 32% of data¹¹ in businesses is either incorrect, incomplete or contradictory and only 3% of businesses consider their data to be « acceptable » in terms of quality.

PIM: the solution that guarantees optimal data quality

PIM solutions (Product Information Management) help businesses to implement a truly data‑driven approach making them 23 times more likely¹⁴ to gain customers than their competitors.

PIM compiles all the product-related data that is spread across various software solutions to centralize and secure it within a single data repository. PIM solutions have advanced features (modeling, workflow, user right management, supervision… ) allowing you to determine a shared data structure and to implement effective processes for inspecting and enriching information.

The use of a PIM solution has become essential with 30% of businesses¹³ having difficulties implementing an effective system for managing their data and 25%¹⁴ searching fruitlessly for a suitable solution that can use this data.

¹ Loeillet, B. (2024, February 22). De l'importance stratégique des données pour les entreprises à leur indispensable qualité. HBR France.
² Barbier, P. (2021, June 17). Comment utiliser les data pour booster la performance de l'entreprise. HBR France.
³ Gartner. (2021, July 14). How to Improve Your Data Quality. gartner.com.
⁴ Tserruya, Y. (2022, September 15). The real price tag of bad data : through the eyes of sales pros. Forbes.
⁵ Frost, D. (2023, February 22). How Bad Sales Data Harms Your Team (and What You Can Do About It). cognism.com.
⁶ Pleuni. (2022, November 18). Bad product information makes 53 % shop elsewhere. Ecommerce News.
⁷ Chardenon, A. Les coûts de la mauvaise qualité de la donnée produit. salsify.com.
⁸ Talend. Guide de la gestion de la qualité des données. Talend - A Leader In Data Integration & Data Integrity.
⁹ Deur, P. (2024, January 10). Why companies need to address bad data immediately. Forbes.
¹⁰ Precisely, Inc. (2024, March 25). 2023 Data Integrity Trends and Insights. Precisely.
¹¹ Buisson-Gentilhomme, K. (2017, December 4). Douter de la qualité ; des données : un impact dans tous les domaines. journaldunet.com.
¹² Salsify, I. La qualité des données produit au service de la performance. salsify.com.
¹³ Nagle, T. (2018, March 9). Only 3% of Companies' Data Meets Basic Quality Standards. Harvard Business Review.
¹⁴ Scriffignano, B. D. A. (2019, June 24). Data Management Study : The Past, Present, and Future of Data. dnb.com.