Study: One In Five Businesses Loses Revenue & Customers Because Of Mishandled Data

Published: July 2, 2019

Poor data practices continue to be a detriment to any company’s success, according to a new report from Dun & Bradstreet. The research shows that almost 20% of businesses have lost a customer due to using incomplete or inaccurate information, while an additional 15% said they failed to sign a new contract with a customer for the same reason.

Key findings from the survey include:

  • 22% of respondents said their financial forecasts have been inaccurate;
  • 17% of organizations offered too much credit to a customer due to a lack of information and lost money as a result; and
  • More than 10% of organizations report having been fined for data issues.

The report, which surveyed more than 500 business decision makers, found that almost half (46%) of the survey respondents said data is too siloed to comprehend. Respondents said their biggest data challenges are protecting data privacy (34%), having accurate data (26%) and analyzing and processing that data (24%).

These challenges may be caused by a lack of data structure and support. According to the survey, 41% of respondents said no one in their organization was responsible for data management and 52% said they do not have enough budget to implement data management practices.

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“Information has always been critical for businesses, but over the past decade, the volume of data, the types of information available and the ability to do new things with that data have expanded enormously,” said Anthony Scriffignano, Chief Data Scientist at Dun & Bradstreet, in a statement. “It’s not surprising that many business leaders feel they are still catching up and their organizations are yet to make the most of data — and some have even been fined or lost customers due to incomplete or ‘dirty’ data.”

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