Informatica World 2008

TDWI once published a study that poor data quality was costing companies an estimated $600B annually in the US alone. And yet, industry analysts estimate the data quality tools market to be between $300-400M annually. The demand for better data quality is clearly there, but the size of the data quality tools market does not appear to reflect that same demand. Could it be that traditional Data Quality tools are not delivering enough value for customers? Perhaps instead of focusing merely on data cleansing and data profiling, tools vendors need to be reminded that the goal, ultimately, is getting customers to the point where they can trust their data.

I had a nice conversation with a customer after giving the Data Quality keynote. This person was using PowerCenter for data integration, but a Data Quality product from another company. Until he had the attention and involvement of the business, he stated that he had no reason to trust the data. I was really struck by this statement. Here was a customer who was clearly an expert in the use of matching technology. He had successfully completed an IT project that was processing very large volumes of data - and yet, without the availability of business owners for the data, he was unable to get enough validation on the data so that he could trust it.

We hear these types of comments very often. A great deal has to happen before customers feel they can trust their data. Eventually, data quality vendors will understand how to address the value gap that exists in this market - but the first to figure this out will have a golden opportunity to overtake the incumbents. Until then, data quality will continue to be an underserved market.