A data audit is an in-depth process that helps you identify missing data, remove data silos, and ensure compliance with laws governing data, including GDPR. It requires a detailed inventory of all the information in your company as well as its locations and cloud applications. It also covers sensitive data that is stored by your company regardless of whether it’s personal information or critical business information.
It is essential to involve all departments involved in this discovery process to make sure they know the impact their actions can have on the availability of data and its integrity. This is also an excellent chance to foster collaboration between departments since they’ll have to align their data management and auditing practices. For example, they must be able to agree on how to label the data fields (e.g. Customer name versus full name, to avoid confusion.
Another benefit of a data audit is that it will identify accidental but costly mistakes made by employees handling sensitive information. These mistakes are usually due to inadequate training, or a lack knowledge of how to properly manage information. Conducting a data audit will help you track and flag these errors, as well as help your employees follow best methods to keep your business’ data secure.
A data audit will ensure that the information in your company is accurate, consistent, and free of duplicates. This will enable you to create a single view of your customers that you can count on. In the end, you can accelerate the speed of your analytics efforts and improve your business processes by having a well-organized and effective data strategy.
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