April 30, 2018  |  Angela Ridpath

Big Data Embraces Quality

Today, the K-12 education sector has embraced big data.  But, this acceptance, for many companies, has resulted in bad data.  In fact, bad data has become more and more commonplace.  Companies have embraced new technology, such as cloud computing and analytics, all in a rush to be more on-demand, personalized and data-driven.  However, many companies have fallen short when it comes to data quality and hygiene.

Sales and Marketing Professionals Clamor for Numbers

Sales Directors are looking for territory growth.  Marketing Directors are looking to prove the value of their campaigns.  If their foundation is built upon inaccurate data, it leads to poor decisions and poor results based on errors.  But just how much is it really costing? Data experts believe that a strong organization can generate up to 70% more revenue than an average organization, just by improving the quality of data. This means, if your average annual revenue = $10 million, your new average annual revenue can jump to $17 million, just by employing cleaner data.

Meet James, Director of Sales for K-12 Curriculum Company

James leads a sales organization comprised of 6 sales representatives.  Each sales representative owns a geographic territory within the United States.  Over the past several years, it’s become increasingly more difficult to hit growth numbers.  His sales team is top-notch.  They understand their business, but they aren’t capturing the full potential of the market in their territories.  In fact, many times, the reason for a lost sale is due to the fact that a competitor approached the key decision-makers first.  In other instances, his team is spending hours researching who the key players are.  How are they missing out on reaching key decision-makers?  They have an API to get recurring feeds from their third-party data provider.  Shouldn’t they be able to keep up with title changes, new employees entering the market and employees no longer at an institution?

James finds a solution

James knew that he had to find answers soon.  His CEO would soon be questioning the plateau in growth and inefficiencies in operations.  This led James to ask some very important questions of his data provider:

• How can they deliver immediate impact and noticeable improvement in data hygiene?
• What percentage of the addressable market is updated and corrected on a monthly basis?
• How are you able to scale and adapt based on volume, speed, and variety while keeping things valid and consistent?

He soon found that his current data provider was unable to address these very important questions, and it was time to make a change.  James made a switch to MCH Strategic Data because of their proprietary Monitor process.  This process uses a combination of advanced technology to detect marketplace changes, plus a thorough verification process by tenured specialists.  This powerful combination of technology and data verification captured the largest percentage of ongoing changes, feeding them to James’ sales team in real-time.  After a few short months, James’ team was winning new business by building relationships faster.  They were also spending more time gathering insights versus cleaning bad records.  They are more efficient and more profitable.