You need clean, reliable data to make decisions, whether you’re in sales, marketing IT, or another business function. This is where effective data management comes in — and that’s why it’s one of the most important tech trends to be watching in the year of 2018.

Data management involves all disciplines involved in treating your data as a valuable asset and guaranteeing its accuracy, reliability and accessibility. That covers everything from data structure to the deployment of analytics and data systems to managing the storage lifecycle of your company’s data.

A solid data management strategy includes six essential attributes or core attributes:

Accuracy — the data should reflect actual, real-world objects and events, and should be verified using reliable sources.

Completeness — The information must include all the avast vs malwarebytes pro mandatory values, such as sending an email to a customer with only their last names.

Consistency — the data should remain consistent throughout all data sets, and remain the same despite being updated or changed.

Accessibility – The data should be readily retrievable by people who require them, without the risk of compromising the quality of compliance.

A data management plan will only be effective if it is supported by all departments and business areas. This is especially crucial because faulty data can be costly for your organization. IBM estimates that poor handling of data can cost the U.S. economy $3.1 trillion each year in lost productivity, and the costs associated with maintaining data.