Speaking over dinner last night, Gwen Thomas, of the Data Governance Institute, painted a picture in our heads of the challenge and suggested that both sides need to collaborate to successfuly manage information. I’ll leave you with my interpretation of the picture she painted…

Bechtold admitted that the Army had struggled with data ownership; different people wanted to own the same data for their own use. The solution cam when Bechtold realised that none of them should own it – instead all US Army data is now owned by the Secretary of the Army and everyone else has stewardship of the data and answerable to the Secretary. In my opinion, this is the only way to answer the data ownership question.

It was suggested by the audience that the Army had an advantage here, in that soldiers were trained and disciplined to accept and act on orders. Bechtold’s answer to this surprised some; “you can’t order people to do anything,” he said, “you can only create the environment and expectation and hope.”

When it comes to technology, Bechtold doesn’t hold any punches; he firmly believes that technology is only there to support the business process. “IT only provides the plumbing,” says Bechtold. He is equally forthright about data management tools; “at the end of the day, a fool with a tool is still a fool,” he says, I don’t care about tools, I don’t care about companies; I care about solving problems.” Bechtold’s message is clear – data management has to be driven by the business, rather than the other way around.

But how should you get started with data management and data quality? Bechtold is typically brash in his response to this question, “start with a burning bridge,” he says, “if necessary create one!” In his view, you need to be justify a data management by solving a critical business issue and that may mean fanning the flames of a known problem to reveal its true impact.

It is often the case that as the economy tightens, so do Marketing budgets, and with very few markets seeing signs of green shoots (or even roots) of recovery, the pressure to achieve continued growth is forcing marketers to be even more creative in their approach. The need to deliver more for less is stronger than ever. According to Jones, the ‘Caped Crusader’ provides a good example of the best approach.

“My boyhood memory of comics is that unlike other heroes, Batman’s not imbued with super powers,” says Jones, with a smile. “He achieves his success through a willingness to tackle problems himself, using a range of high-tech weapons from his utility belt, supported by a level of fitness which is truly exceptional.”

This combination leads Jones to identify three parallels for today’s marketers:

• Get fit (for purpose) as possible – “The most important starting point is to ensure all your data is accurate and actionable. It’s impossible to build an effective prospect or customer segmentation without data which is free from inaccuracies, inconsistencies, or is simply missing,” notes Jones. “Better data means better insight, and the ability to get a Single View across all your data allows for finely targeted messaging of tailored offers to prospects, and powerful cross-, link- or up-sell opportunities for customers through leveraging of purchasing histories.”

• Embrace cutting-edge technology – “There are a wealth of software tools available to marketing departments, from Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools to full Marketing Management Systems (MMS),” continues Jones. “The increasing use of social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook for commercial messaging provides yet another channel to be exploited by marketers, and another data resource which needs to be harnessed for profiling.  Even if the systems themselves are incompatible, the source data that underpins them can be combined, profiled and standardized for effective campaign management.”

• Reduce outsourcing and retain control – “Many marketing departments rely upon external agencies to manage, cleanse and improve their data prior to campaign building campaign target lists. There is an inevitable delay involved in turning around the segment data which can significantly affect the flexibility of an organization to respond to changes in the marketplace or unexpected events,” says Jones. “Even when the data is returned it often still isn’t altogether fit-for-purpose as a result of poor de-duplication or loosely-configured match rules. Products like our dn:Director provide in-house teams of marketers or data analysts to quickly and easily manage and improve the quality of their underlying data, delivering a better Single View of Customer from their CRM, greater accuracy of insight and campaign ROI analysis from the MMS, and the ability to respond at speed to market demands.”

With all this talk of fit-for-purpose data, does Datanomic’s Marketing Director worry about seen as a nerd, rather than a marketer?

“Not a bit,” replies Jones. “Data isn’t the sole domain of the IT team.  Every marketer understands the value of actionable campaign data, as they’re the ones who experience the pain if mail is returned, email blasts are bounced, promotions fail or any other damage hits the campaign because of poor quality data.  There’s nothing nerdy about ensuring good campaign ROI.”

And as for Batman?

“Datanomic is just helping them to ensure the weapons in their utility belt are completely fit-for-purpose.  With our help they just have to roll up their sleeves (or capes if they prefer) and get stuck in,” smiles Jones.

Imagine that your name is Chris Tuck, and you’re attending an industry event in Bristol. You booked your hotel directly using the conference code (in order to get it at a discounted rate) and when you arrive after a long day all you want to do is dump your bags in your room and get some dinner.

Everything goes smoothly at check-in, they find you reservation, swipe your credit card and issue you with a room key. So up in the lift you go and along the corridor until you find your room.

As you enter the room, you notice nothing unusual – it’s a typical business hotel; you could be anywhere. The lights and TV have been switched on to welcome you. You squeeze down the corridor past the bathroom, letting the door slam shut behind you, and dump your bags on the bed.

Then something catches your eye. There’s another bag on the floor by the side of the bed – that’s odd. Then you hear something. You turnaround to find yourself face-to-face with a giant, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist – that’s very odd!

He’s 6′ 7″  inches tall (over 2M) and weighs about 250lbs (nearly 18 stone, or 11oKg) although he looks bigger as he towers over you in his near-naked state with his shaven head. His face is contorted in a frown. ”What are you doing in my room?” you exclaim, in unison.

Now imagine things from my brother’s point of view. You’re name is also Chris Tuck and you’re just getting out of the shower in your hotel room when you hear a door slam. You exit the bathroom to find another man standing next to your bed.

Both Chris Tucks were attending the same event and had booked their rooms independently using the conference discount code. Unfortunately, despite them having different credit card details, company names and addresses , somebody at the hotel had decided that the bookings must be for the same person – this is a false positive match.

In this case it caused much embarrassment for all parties concerned, particularly when it turned out that the hotel was fully booked and the “other” Chris Tuck had to find somewhere else to stay. He and my brother have met and shared a laugh about this mishap on several occasions since -although both are now extra careful when checking into hotels, making sure that their doors are deadlocked and using the do-no-disturb sign!

With some institutions swamped by the volume of false positives, the temptation to tighten match rules can be irresistible.  But whilst this might reduce the immediate pain of so many false positives, it often increases the probability of a more insidious risk, that of false negatives.  Whilst false positives cost time and effort, false negatives allow criminals access to the financial system and can result in fines for the
institution and the MLRO as well as a loss of commercial reputation.

Achieving a Balance

Financial institutions are instructed to take a risk-based approach to anti-money laundering (AML).  But the regulators have also shown that they are willing to flex their muscles if they judge that an MLRO is failing to take adequate steps to implement adequate AML procedures, including the accurate screening of clients.  No screening system can produce perfect results, so the challenge facing the MLRO is to implement a solution that produces minimal false positives without increasing the risk of missing genuine matches.

With simple matching approaches, there is a direct relationship between the number of false positives and the number of false negatives; decreasing one leads to an increase in the other.  Thankfully, there are ways of decreasing the number of false positives without increasing the risk of false negatives.

If you’d like a copy of this white paper, please register for a copy at the Datanomic Resource Library.

The survey is scheduled to run until March 16th, 2009 with a report discussing the findings due by the end of June.

 Click to take part in the data quality salary survey.

I agree with Jorgen on this and the general thrust of his post, but I had to respond to his suggestion that we should “forget about data quality”.  Here’s my response …

Crazy BI

Interesting post Jorgen, but I must pick you up on the issue of data quality.

If you are saying that you shouldn’t wait for your data to be perfect before using it in BI, then I agree; but to completely ignore the quality of the information you’re using to inform your decisions would be like playing roulette – Russian style. I’d also suggest that having too much data or data that is out of date are very much data quality issues.

No, you don’t need perfect data for BI, but you do need data that is fit for purpose and you therefore to be able to define what good data looks like and how you are going to measure (and if necessary) improve its quality.

These challenges also apply to external data, which all too often, imho, people see as a silver bullet. You need to understand the provenance of that information – where did it come from and when was it collected? And unless your’s and the external share a common key, you’re going to have to use some intelligent processing to integrate it in a way that will deliver value to the business.

As an industry we like to label things, but I see data management, data integration, data quality and data governance as different expressions of a desire to do the same thing – the creation, management and maintenance of data that is fit purpose for the business – all the purposes of the business.

Delivering on that requires processes, tools and technology that support all aspects of all the aforementioned list, but most importantly of all, it needs the recognition of the value of data to the business. For more of my views on this subject, visit my blog on www.datanomic.com.

I truly do believe that Business Intelligence without data quality would be Crazy BI!

Terence Sparks was disqualified as a director several years ago. That doesn’t mean you absolutely shouldn’t do business with the fellow, but you might want to know about his disqualification as part of any due diligence process for a high-profile position. But he was arrested whilst employed as Terry Freeman, having changed his name and the ease with which people can acquire new identities makes the identification of higher risk individuals a tougher challenge than it might otherwise be.*

Datanomic’s dn:Director for Screening solution can work with data from partners that specialise in tracking high-risk individuals and politically exposed persons. By using some clever web technology and employing risk investigators, they build and maintain categorised lists of individuals and companies that you would be better off avoiding (known money launders, drug traffickers and terrorists) and those with a history or position that you should be cognisant of (including disqualified directors). It’s then up to you to make an assessment of the potential risk for your organisation in engaging with the individual or company concerned.

Financial Services companies are required to have someone in the role of Money Laundering Reporting Officer (MLRO), who is responsible for monitoring risk and reporting concerns to the regulator. But the risk of doing business with someone that might cause damage to security, your finances or reputation, is not exclusive to the financial services industry. Neither does the risk lie exclusively with customers; as the case of Mr Sparks/Freeman demonstrates, Know Your Employees (and Know Your Supplier) may be as important as Know Your Customer.

*Datanomic’s dn:Director for Screening solution recognises name variants, such as Terry & Terence, Bill & William, etc. and can also match names across the Cyrillic and Roman alphabets, but it needs help to find people that are using alias names that are very different. This is where suppliers like World-Check and Dow Jones come in. They provide knowledge about individuals and companies that may constitute a heightened risk and they collect information about the identities that these people use. A single individual may have 2, 4, or 20 or more different identities with different names, addresses and dates of birth; but working with these intelligence lists dn:Director for Screening is able to identify and reduce the exposure to risk.

In statement published on guardian.co.uk, Andrew Way, chief executive of Hampstead’s Royal Free hospital, in north-west London, said his staff were “incredibly disappointed” with the IT upgrade on trial at the hospital. Mr. Way went on to talk about the problems of getting the new Care Record System (CRS) working, revealing that the hospital was forced to spend an additional £4m on getting the system working and had lost a further £6m because of fewer patients and problems with the system that meant the hospital was unable to bill other parts of the NHS for work done.

There’s no doubt that an integrated view of patient records should lead to improved; I’ve seen the evidence of what can happen when clinicians don’t have complete or accurate information about their patients.  It can lead to patients receiving the wrong treatment with sometimes deadly consequences.

But the NHS is also a massive business, or more accurately a collection of businesses that trade with each other. If data is incorrect, a patient could be allocated the wrong treatment code. This not only determines patient care, but also the associated cost to the commissioner and can affect the budget for the Primary Care Trust and GP Practices. As an extreme example, a mistake in the dates of a patient’s hospital stay could lead to an in-patient spell of 2 years rather than 2 weeks and can cost a hundred thousand pounds rather than a thousand pounds but other errors are often a lot smaller and a lot more difficult to identify.

NPfIT is a national programme being driven by the UK government, but it needs to deliver positive results from all the stakeholders; Patients, Clinicians, PCTs, Hospitals and the tax payer. Last month the Commons Public Accounts Committee warned of further delays to the scheme and described progress as “very disappointing”.

Fit for purpose data is essential for cinical purpose and strategic decision making. Read how Durham Primary Care Trust is ensuring that it has complete and accurate data by using dn:Director.

“Even non-bankers with no “credit risk management” expertise would have known that there must have been a very high risk if you lend money to people who have no jobs, no provable income and no assets.”  These are the words of Paul Moore, former head of Group Regulatory Risk, HBOS Plc in a his written evidence to the Treasury Committee on Tuesday, a copy of which has now been published in the Financial Times (Paul Moore’s memo in full).

Mr Moore alleges that he was summarily dismissed for trying to alert the bank’s board to “negligence” and even “recklessness” at the in 2005.  The man he says sacked him was Sir James Crosby, the then CEO of HBOS, who was subsequently appointed as deputy chairman of the Financial Services Authority, a position he resigned from yesterday.

Mr Moore alleges, the financial crisis was completely foreseeable, “caused, not because many bright people did not see it coming, but because there has been a completely inadequate ’separation’ and ‘balance of powers’ between the executive and all those accountable for overseeing their actions and ‘reining them in’.” If this is true, it indicates systemic issues with the way that financial institutions have been managed and regulated for years.

The future undoubtedly will see increased regulation for banks, but it’s going to take a long time for them to start earning back the trust of the general public. Risk management procedures need to be overhauled and risk assessments require complete and accurate information. Financial institutions surely don’t need to wait for governments and regulators to tell them this; they can start now by auditing risk data and ensuring that it is fit for purpose.