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Why should I Profile my Data?

You have got an enterprise system for your organization since long time. Do you know how much data quality issues you may have in your data? What does that mean ?
1. You may have different date formats - like mmddyyyy, ddmmyyyy, dd-mon-yyyy and so on.
2.You may have unit of measurement (UOM) inconsistencies issues. - Somebody putting the data in inches, one in cms and one in feet.
3. Have you considered the currency conversion and exchange rate issues.
4. And how about the material code ? One coding it as ABC123, other as ABC-123 and another as ABC 123. All are same, but when you search you dont find the material ABC123 and you order another 1000 quanitities, when same material named as ABC 123 is there in your warehouse.
5. Do you know the vendor ABC, AB-C, AB Corp and AB Ltd are same under one group?

All these issues are eating in your money. Directly or indirectly. Just under your nose, because they are the issues, you are going through everyday, but just ignoring it due to invisibility problem.

Thats why the "Data Profiling" is most important step for you. It will tell you how much problem you are into and make a statement about how much efforts you may need to put for to go ahead.

Watch out for next step - How to execute Data profiling and save cost too.

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