VCU news

By Tom Gresham

The first comprehensive look at how data management is practiced worldwide reveals that most organizations do not manage data well, according to a Virginia Commonwealth University study published this month.

The study, which is published in the April issue of Computer, the flagship publication of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) Computer Society, includes an assessment of the data management practices of 175 organizations in both the public and private sectors between 2000 and 2006. Most of the organizations scored low on the assessment, indicating businesses and others have significant challenges in the area of data management.

These results are important because good data management practices are a necessary prerequisite to many technology-based organizational initiatives such as data warehousing, business intelligence, customer relationship management and other business analytics, according to lead author Peter Aiken, associate professor of information systems in the School of Business at Virginia Commonwealth University and founding director of Data Blueprint, a data management consulting firm. The poor results indicate a possible cause for these and other organizational initiative failures.

The researchers noted that many organizations do not invest sufficiently in data management, treating data as a maintenance cost rather than as an asset. That failure "is costly in terms of market share, profit, strategic opportunity, stock price and so on," according to the study.

The study's assessment results are based on self-reporting by the organizations involved; approximately 15 percent of the organizations also participated in an in-person investigation by researchers to validate the self-assessments. Researchers aimed to measure not only whether a data process is performed in an organization, but the maturity with which the process is performed.

The assessment results will aid data management practice improvements in organizations by presenting a scale for measuring data management accomplishments. The study's broad scope allows organizations to compare their performance against others in their industry and against the wider community.

In addition to Aiken, authors of the study include M. David Allen, chief operating officer of Data Blueprint; Burt Park, an independent data management consultant; and Angela Mattia, professor of information systems at J. Sergeant Reynolds Community College. The study can be found on Computer's web site, http://www.computer.org/portal/site/computer/index.jsp.