The DMA's business list audit is beginning to gain momentum in the marketplace with many data suppliers voicing their opinions on what a positive step the audit is for the industry and clambering to attain the standard. As Mike Gray, from Conduit rightly highlighted: "...to rid the industry of the data quality problem, we must educate peers and customers as to the value of data that meets a certain standard". While we agree with the above point, as an industry we also need to keep a realistic perspective on initiatives like the BLA.
The audit is an attempt to counter the issue of business-to-business data quality and it provides a benchmark for data quality and data hygiene for third party lists. In light of the current state of the business data market where falling data prices are beginning to have a serious impact on the industry, the BLA might be viewed as a positive move because of the emphasis it places on the importance of reinvesting in data. However there is a danger that data suppliers are joining up to the standard with a 'me too' attitude rather than to improve B2B data quality or for benchmarking purposes.
The BLA not only needs to be a workable solution for the market but also for data suppliers and clients. Data suppliers need to be asking themselves what they get out of being accredited to the audit and for example, will accreditation make them appear more credible to potential clients?
If the BLA is to become a workable solution for the industry and clients alike, the following three steps should be adhered to:
Visible penalties to any business failing to comply with the audit
Data suppliers should understand the impact of failing to comply with the audit and only by having visible penalties in place will businesses ensure their data is regularly cleansed and updated. Furthermore this would provide clients with a guarantee that any data they are buying is of high quality.
Incentives to encourage data owners to join
Other than just being accredited, data owners need to know and understand the ongoing support they will get from the DMA by joining up to this standard. This could include, for example, the DMA actively promoting the companies that have been accredited.
Client (brand owners) involvement
The most important issue surrounding the BLA is client involvement. This is difficult, as many clients do not understand the value of data within an organisation and how to make use of it let alone processes like updating and cleansing it on a regular basis. The DMA needs to actively canvass the support of clients to back the initiative and to enforce the audit as a pre-requisite for involvement with the data owner in question.
The lack of importance clients place on clean and fresh data is most glaringly revealed in all Experian Intact usage in the past 12 months whereby 12,000,000 business names and addresses were offered for cleaning but of which 98% came from bureaux or DM agencies and only 2% from end clients.
Clients are really the ultimate reason as to why this audit should exist. While big brands might have a dedicated data person, there are smaller companies that rely on us, the suppliers, to help guide them with their data strategy, so we need to be doing everything we can to educate them on data quality. As an industry we have a responsibility to clean our own data but we also have a role to play in ensuring clients do the same. After all, if it wasn't for them, we wouldn't be here in the first place.
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