Throughout our life in data, it’s never easy to see what is around you when you’re in the midst of the action. But since we’ve created The Data Company, we’ve been able to step back a bit and view what is really going on in “The Data World”. What has become apparent, is that a number of organisations are migrating their data from one system to another. This is great news for progress, but do they really understand what kind of golden egg they’re holding?
Migration of data is easy to do, but to do it effectively, is a highly complex process. I’ve seen it a number of times, people moving the same data from one system to the next, as their concerns over legacy information, often cloud the real world value of cleansing, de-duping and normalising their data for the new system. It’s the old adage, “Rubbish in, Rubbish out”, because this is what will happen when it comes time to do a campaign from your data, or run a sales history report.
It’s not often that you get a chance to start again, so when you’re ready to upgrade your systems, or are changing over for any other reason, make sure you seek some professional advice from someone you trust. As making the wrong decisions when migrating data, will not just make your life harder, IT WILL COST YOU MONEY!