Improving data quality and management in one South African SME for data analytics

Abstract

In today’s competitive and complex environments, organisations are collecting enormous amounts of data that require intelligent systems and technologies for storage, management, integration, processing, analysing and usage to assist in the making of informed business decisions. In this era of technological advancement, data are regarded as a critical organisational asset and investment to assist organisations with innovation, support of organisational activities, measurement of business performance, analysis of customer behaviour and most importantly, decision-making. However, if the organisational data is of poor quality, is unreliable, and from untrusted sources, it becomes a challenge to extract valuable information from such data. Although large enterprises have resources to manage large volumes of data, most small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are struggling to use their data for performance measurement and decision-making processes. Poor data quality and not having proper tools and technologies to manage their enormous volumes of data prevent them from gaining competitive advantage over rivalries. This study followed a design research methodology where an artefact was designed to assist one South African SME with capturing, storing and management of data. The study further proposes guidelines and technologies that one SA SME and other SMEs can implement to better manage data and improve data quality.