Survey shows that Sweden has the best and Norway the worst Data Quality in the Nordics.

A survey* Omikron Data Quality has done in the Nordics shows that Swedish Companies has the best and Norwegian Companies the worst Data Quality of their customer databases. By using our Data Quality Software we have tested Nordic companies, regardless of size and business segments, on how many duplicates they have in their customer databases.

The results shows that Sweden had the best Data Qualty, with an average of 14,9% of duplicates, followed by Denmark with 16,7% and in the bottom Norway with 19,7%. The Nordic average is 17,1%

An interesting observation is that whereas in Sweden, all the results are close to the average, there are great discrepancies in the Norwegian numbers. They are either very good or very bad.

A possible reason why Norway scores in the bottom is that there is a little overrepresentation of companies that want to consolidate and merge several databases. Probably because of company mergers or they want to convert their data to one system. It is critical to start the new system with clean data. It is actually positive for Norway that it is an overrepresentation of these consolidations, because it is a sign that the problem is taken seriously.

The reason why Sweden has the top score is because the companies possibilities to register personal data is more liberal in Sweden than the rest of the Nordics. The official register for companies in Norway is not 100% accurate either, which affects the companies data.

Why are duplicates the single biggest problem in customer databases?

There are high indirect and direct cost related to duplicates and bad data quality. Frustrated employees that contacts the customers double, or use a lot of time for error-rework, lost customers, lost customer attrition and wrong foundation for decisions are just a few points. We have in an earlier posting showed how some estimates the cost of poor data to 10-20% of your revenue. In the bottom of this post you will find an example of how much bad data quality costs, and what Swedish companies win in comparison to Norwegian companies.

What is the cost of bad Data Quality

Method : 1 in 10 rule by Thomas C. Redman

In this theory Thomas Redman explains how a perfect customer records costs 1 USD, a bad will cost 10 USD. We use the results of the survey.

An interesting observation is that a Norwegian company with 500.000 customer records with the average Data Quality will have nearly a quarter million in more costs than a comperative Swedish company.

How is your Data Quality?

If you want to test your customer data, to see if you make decisions based on correct data, you can contact me on jei@omikron.net

*the survey is not scientific because of too few testdata to get a 100% representative results. But the survey gives us an indication of the situation.