Managing vast amounts of product data comes with its share of challenges, making the role of a product data cleansing and enrichment consultant indispensable. 

Here are five benefits of engaging a consultant like AICA for your product data management needs:

1. Enhanced Data Quality and Accuracy

A data cleansing and enrichment consultant helps organisations rectify inconsistencies, correct inaccuracies and eliminate redundancies in their data. AICA utilises AI and ML, to automate this process, ensuring your data is not just accurate but also relevant, complete and up-to-date. Enhanced data quality translates to better-informed business decisions and strategies.

Here’s what AICAs data cleansing involves:

Identification of Errors/Inconsistencies

Data cleansing starts with detecting anomalies, inaccuracies, and inconsistencies in the dataset. This can include incorrect spelling, formatting errors, out-of-range values, and discrepancies in data representation.

Deduplication

One of the key tasks in data cleansing is the identification and removal of duplicate records. Duplicate entries can distort analyses and lead to incorrect conclusions and decisions.

Validation and Verification

Data is validated and verified to ensure that it conforms to the desired format, range, and pattern. Validation checks can involve cross-referencing with other data sources to confirm accuracy.

Handling Missing Data

Data cleansing involves addressing gaps in the dataset. Missing data can be imputed, interpolated, or handled in a way that aligns with the analysis’s objectives and the nature of the missing data.

Standardisation

Standardising data involves converting different representations of the same data into a common format. For example, date formats may need to be standardised and categorical data may be harmonised.

Correction of Errors

After identifying errors, the next step is to correct them. This can involve fixing typos, recalculating values, or replacing inaccurate data with correct values from a reliable source.

Data Enrichment

While not strictly part of data cleansing, data enrichment can be considered a subsequent step. It involves augmenting the existing dataset with additional information from external sources to enhance its value.

Auditing and Reporting

After the cleansing process, a thorough audit and reporting of the changes made, the issues identified, and any remaining limitations or inconsistencies in the dataset are important for maintaining data quality in the future.

Continuous Monitoring and Maintenance

Data cleansing is not a one-time activity. Continuous monitoring and maintenance are essential to ensure that the data remains accurate, consistent and reliable over time.

2. Cost and Time Efficiency

One of the significant advantages of having a consultant like AICA is the substantial reduction in time and cost associated with managing product data. For your employees, given the time-intensive nature of each action— cleaning product data takes approximately 30 seconds per product or service—the cumulative time investment can indeed be substantial, especially for companies dealing with extensive catalogues.

AICA’s platform automates the lengthy and complex process of data cleansing and enrichment, boasting a reduction in time and costs by up to 90%. This efficiency allows organisations to allocate resources to more strategic initiatives.

3. Improved Compliance and Standardisation

Product data consultants help establish and maintain data governance, ensuring compliance with industry standards and regulations. AICA addresses the lack of data standardisation and governance, helping organisations navigate through various compliances, especially when dealing with transactions across multiple geographical locations. 

This standardisation is crucial in maintaining data integrity and ensuring smooth business operations.

4. Insightful Data Utilisation

By enriching data, consultants add value to the existing datasets, making them more comprehensive and insightful. AICA’s enrichment additions and UNSPSC segmentation offer more granular data categorisation, aiding in better analytics and insights. 

This enriched data helps organisations tailor their marketing strategies, optimise their supply chain, and enhance employee efficiency.

5. Proactive Problem Resolution

Engaging a consultant enables organisations to proactively address and resolve potential data-related issues. 

The 1-10-100 rule highlighted by AICA demonstrates the importance of preventing data issues early on – resolving a data discrepancy at the source costs significantly less than correcting or working with uncleaned records. 

This proactive approach fosters a healthier data ecosystem and mitigates risks associated with poor data quality.

Conclusion

Having a product data cleansing and enrichment consultant like AICA provides organisations with a strategic edge. Not only does it ensure data accuracy, quality and compliance, but it also fosters better insights, cost savings and proactive problem resolution. In a world increasingly reliant on accurate and timely information, engaging a consultant like AICA is a step forward in optimising your organisation’s data management strategies and reaping the rewards of high-quality product data.

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