Design a clear but modular end 2 end project plan.
Planning and executing a clear but modular process for a complex matter like an End 2 End data cleansing program is essential. Our Data Cleansing Life-Cycle usually goes from Assessment which we have touched in our first article, an initial address cleansing and harmonization steps which allows you to unify and build the groundwork for the successful result, over to our unique merging phase, including identifying, scoring, and merge of duplicates, to the final implementation of the data in your legacy systems.
Unfortunately, that is not everything you need to consider to be successful in setting up your next data cleansing project. To understand what to look for, we have to dive into the industry and customer-related variables to indicate what modularity you should consider in your project execution plan.
You are a manufacturing cooperation, precisely a Life-Sciences instrument Manufacturer. First – Organization structure – Most international manufacturing companies operating in a rather complex matrix structure have business units and or divisional breakdowns to work closer to market and customer needs. This might impact the way data is owned and used and requires involvement from different stakeholders, too. 2nd is demographics – Being an international organization means serving clients in many places. This comes with the complexity for a data cleansing project of different local norms in terms, e.g., data formats, language, or alphabetics. 3rd customer groups or segmentation – Your customers usually strongly differ based on their organizational structure. Let’s take an example of an Academic research customer. From a customer data perspective, here is where it gets tricky. You usually find a central location, different research institutes, subsidiary research groups, research projects, with and without funding structure. These, besides setting up a standard customer type structure, requires a more advanced type of data research to structure and clean respective data, then compared to a Biotech, Pharma or a Privat Labs which usually do have different locations depending on the size of the cooperation but are not as profoundly ramified ad academic or governmental customers.
Plan and select the right resources for you next data cleansing project.
Besides having someone who steers and navigates the ship, which we outlined in part one of our article series, a project like this will require other critical internal and external resources to allow smooth and timely progress throughout your data cleansing project. There is the role of a data officers, which can be eighter sourced internally or externally, which should provide you with the ability to support address verification & harmonization, being able to help you to manage duplicate cases, and act as a central point of contact towards your customer-facing roles. Most of our projects benefit from a combination of internal and external resources due to the skills, task, and headcount situation of the client. Having some of your team close to your customers can be of significant help to clarify questions or push the decision process on, e.g., duplication cases further. Being local provides the advantage of a local language, too. We always recommend hiring full-time people. Some of you might say now, where should we get all that people from? Well, we all know how it goes. Having someone in an administrative role, reporting into a local organization, executing on 20 different things daily might not serve you well as a data officer, as this role, particularly for a more extensive initial clean-up, requires continuity and dedication. From what we have experienced over the years as a data services provider, having the majority of the team as shared resources can result in a deal-breaker for your project being delayed or even failing to complete. Having some dedicated time reserved from customer-facing roles like sales, inside sales, or market management is more than crucial to your next data cleansing project, especially when it comes to handling duplication, merging of data-sets, and critical customer types. These roles are vital as they know their customer inside out and have a direct line to them. Involving front-line teams might get tricky, particularly at month, a quarter, or year-end. Besides good time management, this requires strong management skills and early alignment with your key decision-makers.
Initial cleaning doesn’t go without continuous cleansing.
Running an extensive End to End Data Cleansing Program usually takes quite some time and resources if you want to make it right. It is with certainty one of the most critical success factors to get your continuous cleansing strategy right before you start a big clean-up initiative.
Let me give you an example to demonstrate the importance – You’re having issues keeping your house clean and tightened up over the last few years. You decided to make yourself a treat and have hired a professional cleaning company in early spring to clean your house from top to button spending hundreds of dollars to let your home sparkle. The next day you keep on doing what you have done in the past, continue using your outside shoes in your house, or do not clean up the dishes after lovely evening dinner. Well, it will get back to where you started very soon. That will be the same with our data. If you don’t put continuous effort into maintaining your data entry gates, it will get back to where you started, and there is no chance to prevent your data from decaying.
In other words, If you do not change your rules and start to apply them strictly to restrict, as, in our example, disarray to come into your home, this will affect your data quality and significantly harm your initial cleansing efforts. Therefore, it is more than vital to assess and design a so-called continuous data touchpoint where Data is systematically checked and cleaned alongside the end two end data life cycle. Preferably that must happen as soon or even before you start your initial data cleansing initiative.
Conclusion
- Layout a clear and modular end two-end project plan – Make sure you follow a clear process layout. Analyze your situation well. Build the modularity your project needs to cope with challenges like customer groups, demographics and ultimately succeed with your next data cleansing initiative.
- Plan your resources wisely – Besides having your Sr. Data Mgmt. Role in place to steer the ship. We strongly advise taking care of enough internal, preferably dedicated resources. Data Officers close to your customer will create huge benefits and speed up the decision-making, mainly dealing with complex customer types and a high degree of duplication cases. Pair internal with external resources to have the optimal mix of skills, customer focus, and cost-effectiveness for your next data cleansing effort.
- Initial cleaning doesn’t go without continuous cleansing – Ensure you have lined up several constant cleansing touchpoints before or while you start your big initial clean-up to prevent your data from decay. It will save you a lot of additional Ressourcen and discussions especially over the mid-term.
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