DATA VERIFICATION IDENTIFIED AS A COSTLY SOURCE OF STRESS FOR FINANCE EXECUTIVES ACROSS ASIA-PACIFIC
Announcement posted by Business Objects 12 Dec 2006
Research reveals 39 percent of respondents spend 2 to 6 hours per week verifying the data that they use for making business decisions
Business Objects, the world’s leading provider of business intelligence (BI) solutions, today announced new Asia-Pacific research by leading analyst firm IDC, that reveals poor data quality as a significant and growing issue for companies, affecting business profitability, operations and process improvement.
The report, entitled ‘Understanding Data Quality Needs And Practices In Asia Pacific’, found a disconnect between the quality of source data collected by businesses and the ability of finance executives and CFOs to trust this data in making business decisions.
The report found that the majority of finance executives admitted to facing stress - 22 percent found it highly or quite stressful - due to the bad quality of data they use for decision making. 30 percent of respondents spent 8 hours per week or more verifying the accuracy and quality of their data, while 39 percent spent 2 to 6 hours per week on the issue.
“The IDC report highlights a disturbing and ongoing issue in finance departments where collected data cannot be relied upon to make business decisions,” said Ian Parker, Product & Solutions Marketing Manager, Business Objects Asia Pacific & Japan. “Instead of being an asset for finance, the data becomes a major source of angst and frustration, wasting resources, money, and contributing to poor decision making.
“The report shows that on average across the region, only 60 percent of respondents considered the purchase of a data quality software tool to solve their problem, despite wasting 100-300 hours of their finance executives’ time each year on the issue. One can argue that there are plenty of hidden costs when it comes to data quality and that CFOs should examine how this is affecting their organisation.”
Human error remains the major source of problematic data in all countries surveyed. This is followed by a lack of systems and/or personnel to validate data. Almost all the respondents surveyed said that some part of their data validation work is done manually and only a small portion of them have established, or are considering a data quality ‘centre of excellence’.
According to research conducted by Harris Interactive[1] (June 2006), up to 75 percent of information workers having made business decisions that later turned out to be wrong due to flawed data, these factors result in huge amounts of time wasted discussing data quality and added pressure on financial processes.
The IDC report found regulatory compliance is the most important driver forcing organisations to improve data quality. Other factors high on the CFO agenda include, increasing the competitiveness of the company, increasing the size of the business and better, faster decision making.
The findings for the report came from 143 respondents across Asia Pacific, 47 percent of whom were from organisations with annual revenue in excess of US$50 million with the majority of this group from organisations with US$100 million to US$250 million annual turnover.
Rob Wells, Business Objects managing director for Australia and New Zealand said, "The first step in building a high performance organisation is to make sure that you can trust your data. A comprehensive approach will ensure that every decision maker is using correct, consistent data. Business Objects data quality software and services quickly and flexibly integrate and improve your information to provide the most trusted foundation for your business decisions.”
Business Objects data quality solutions currently deliver improved data cleansing and profiling benefits to many companies regionally and worldwide. The company strengthened this offering with its acquisition of Firstlogic in April 2006. Business Objects now provides the most advanced data quality platform in the market, delivering accurate and trusted information to support companies investing in business intelligence (BI), operational initiatives, or enterprise information management (EIM). The company’s data quality solutions are already in use by customers in a diverse range of verticals including telecommunications, media, manufacturing, logistics, aviation, automotive, banking and retail.
For more information on Business Objects data quality solutions please visit: http://www.businessobjects.com/products/dataquality/
About Business Objects
Business Objects is the world’s leading business intelligence (BI) software company, with more than 39,000 customers worldwide, including over 80 percent of the Fortune 500. Business Objects helps organisations of all sizes create a trusted foundation for decision making, gain better insight into their business, and optimise performance. The company’s innovative business intelligence suite, BusinessObjects™ XI, offers the BI industry’s most advanced and complete solution for performance management, planning, reporting, query and analysis and enterprise information management. BusinessObjects XI includes the award-winning Crystal line of reporting and data visualisation software. Business Objects has also built the industry’s strongest and most diverse partner community, and offers consulting and education services to help customers effectively deploy their business intelligence projects.
Business Objects has dual headquarters in San Jose, Calif., and Paris, France. The company’s stock is traded on both the Nasdaq (BOBJ) and Euronext Paris (ISIN: FR0004026250 - BOB) stock exchanges. More information about Business Objects can be found at www.businessobjects.com.
The Business Objects logo, BusinessObjects, Crystal Reports, Intelligent Question, and Xcelsius are trademarks or registered trademarks of Business Objects in the United States and/or other countries. All other names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.
The report, entitled ‘Understanding Data Quality Needs And Practices In Asia Pacific’, found a disconnect between the quality of source data collected by businesses and the ability of finance executives and CFOs to trust this data in making business decisions.
The report found that the majority of finance executives admitted to facing stress - 22 percent found it highly or quite stressful - due to the bad quality of data they use for decision making. 30 percent of respondents spent 8 hours per week or more verifying the accuracy and quality of their data, while 39 percent spent 2 to 6 hours per week on the issue.
“The IDC report highlights a disturbing and ongoing issue in finance departments where collected data cannot be relied upon to make business decisions,” said Ian Parker, Product & Solutions Marketing Manager, Business Objects Asia Pacific & Japan. “Instead of being an asset for finance, the data becomes a major source of angst and frustration, wasting resources, money, and contributing to poor decision making.
“The report shows that on average across the region, only 60 percent of respondents considered the purchase of a data quality software tool to solve their problem, despite wasting 100-300 hours of their finance executives’ time each year on the issue. One can argue that there are plenty of hidden costs when it comes to data quality and that CFOs should examine how this is affecting their organisation.”
Human error remains the major source of problematic data in all countries surveyed. This is followed by a lack of systems and/or personnel to validate data. Almost all the respondents surveyed said that some part of their data validation work is done manually and only a small portion of them have established, or are considering a data quality ‘centre of excellence’.
According to research conducted by Harris Interactive[1] (June 2006), up to 75 percent of information workers having made business decisions that later turned out to be wrong due to flawed data, these factors result in huge amounts of time wasted discussing data quality and added pressure on financial processes.
The IDC report found regulatory compliance is the most important driver forcing organisations to improve data quality. Other factors high on the CFO agenda include, increasing the competitiveness of the company, increasing the size of the business and better, faster decision making.
The findings for the report came from 143 respondents across Asia Pacific, 47 percent of whom were from organisations with annual revenue in excess of US$50 million with the majority of this group from organisations with US$100 million to US$250 million annual turnover.
Rob Wells, Business Objects managing director for Australia and New Zealand said, "The first step in building a high performance organisation is to make sure that you can trust your data. A comprehensive approach will ensure that every decision maker is using correct, consistent data. Business Objects data quality software and services quickly and flexibly integrate and improve your information to provide the most trusted foundation for your business decisions.”
Business Objects data quality solutions currently deliver improved data cleansing and profiling benefits to many companies regionally and worldwide. The company strengthened this offering with its acquisition of Firstlogic in April 2006. Business Objects now provides the most advanced data quality platform in the market, delivering accurate and trusted information to support companies investing in business intelligence (BI), operational initiatives, or enterprise information management (EIM). The company’s data quality solutions are already in use by customers in a diverse range of verticals including telecommunications, media, manufacturing, logistics, aviation, automotive, banking and retail.
For more information on Business Objects data quality solutions please visit: http://www.businessobjects.com/products/dataquality/
About Business Objects
Business Objects is the world’s leading business intelligence (BI) software company, with more than 39,000 customers worldwide, including over 80 percent of the Fortune 500. Business Objects helps organisations of all sizes create a trusted foundation for decision making, gain better insight into their business, and optimise performance. The company’s innovative business intelligence suite, BusinessObjects™ XI, offers the BI industry’s most advanced and complete solution for performance management, planning, reporting, query and analysis and enterprise information management. BusinessObjects XI includes the award-winning Crystal line of reporting and data visualisation software. Business Objects has also built the industry’s strongest and most diverse partner community, and offers consulting and education services to help customers effectively deploy their business intelligence projects.
Business Objects has dual headquarters in San Jose, Calif., and Paris, France. The company’s stock is traded on both the Nasdaq (BOBJ) and Euronext Paris (ISIN: FR0004026250 - BOB) stock exchanges. More information about Business Objects can be found at www.businessobjects.com.
The Business Objects logo, BusinessObjects, Crystal Reports, Intelligent Question, and Xcelsius are trademarks or registered trademarks of Business Objects in the United States and/or other countries. All other names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.