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Data Management 2022 Thought Leadership Recap

“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.”

This quote from Oprah Winfrey resonates as we turn the page into 2023. Whatever our business or professional goals are for the new year, we need to continue to learn from prior mistakes and successes. This is particularly true as we see B2B complexities evolve.

We thought we would share some of our popular topics and posts from our data thought leaders in 2022. Take advantage of this expertise, whether you’re just beginning your planning or revisiting your strategies.

Plotting a course through turbulent times

Dun & Bradstreet's annual primary research of data in the sales and marketing world. What are B2B go-to-market teams doing to adapt during turbulent times? We did an in-depth survey of 600 sales, marketing, data, and operations leaders in midsize and enterprise companies across three countries and 22 industries. Our report shines a light on the obstacles and potential solutions that can help your organization survive in today’s volatile business landscape.

Download the 9th Annual B2B Sales and Marketing Data Report

Proactive governance can be the answer to our data problems

Poor data quality is costing us to the tune of $3.1 trillion. One of the observations we made in our survey of 600 sales, marketing, data, and operations leaders (see above) is that those who identified as “confident in their sales and marketing performance” were more likely to say their team was the one to champion data within the business. Success begins by understanding that protecting our data assets is a responsibility that lies with the company, not just the data team.

Read Got Data? Then You’ve Probably Got a Data Problem

Data quality: It’s the obstacle to data-driven marketing

Bad data is the villain preventing us from having a truly data-driven business. Want proof? According to a Harvard Business Review study, half the people working with data waste their time hunting for data, finding and correcting errors, and searching for confirmation for data they don’t trust. This article takes a look at some of the causes of and cures for our bad data.

Read Top Challenges Managing B2B Data and What You Can Do                

These ‘Covid disruptors’ are here to stay

Adaptation is the name of the game in B2B sales and marketing. Savvy sales and marketing leaders must roll with the punches, whether caused by global events, platform evolutions, the economy, or customer behaviors. We identified five disruptors that surfaced during Covid-19 and transformed the way our teams are operating today.

Read 5 Disruptors Impacting B2B Revenue Teams

Data-driven decisions begin with good data

Bad data quality in your CRM is the root cause of bad decisions. Don’t let your CRM and RevOps processes fall prey to bad data. We identify four types of bad data and their causes and provide tips to improve the data quality in your CRM.

Read Your CRM Might Be Filled With Bad Decisions Waiting to Happen

Six pillars of data management for a strong RevOps framework

If your account-based marketing, segmentation, market sizing, and other go-to-market planning efforts seem to resemble a guessing game plagued with manual data manipulation and evaluation, you’re not alone! Revenue operations — the convergence of marketing, sales, and customer support — isn’t easy to get right. It’s not uncommon that our go-to-market planning efforts feel like a guessing game. Ultimately our organizations’ data and how it’s managed are to blame. When thinking about a RevOps framework, these are some of the important facets of data management that our experts recommend you consider to strengthen your approach.

Read Data Management: The Key to Strong Revenue Operations

Should data really be at the center of your master data management journey?

As crazy as it may sound, data might not be at the center of a successful master data management journey. At the heart of the journey are people — the people who need to be communicating with each other and adhering to short- and long-term business goals.

Read The Master Data Management Journey

Truth in data starts with your data culture

Do you need a single source of truth (SSOT) for data? Yes. For a data-driven enterprise, an SSOT is a necessity to provide deliberate and accurate insights into decision-making for the business. However, it is not something that should be rushed into; nor should you feel paralyzed due to the lack of having an SSOT.

An SSOT is really the result of a well-executed data journey and culture. Here we define what an SSOT is, or should be, and five steps to SSOT success that will provide dependable, accurate data at scale.

Read The Truth About a Single Source of Truth for Data  

Customer Story: An organization in search of a holistic view of its global business

This leading global health company needed to combine data from multiple systems, business processes, and regions for a more holistic view of its business.

The challenge was clearly stated by the business’s data quality and data privacy manager who said, “We had to address the nagging question of why we weren’t using all of the data that we were collecting. The dream of a single unified system to drive increased strategic value was still just a vision. The truth was that our data was working against us. We were challenged by inaccurate or incomplete data, data that was outdated, and a proliferation of duplicate records in our system. All of this led to a lack of trust in any strategic analysis we tried to produce.”

Read Essity – A Data Transformation Across Borders