The US-based President of Data Quality Solutions is on the front foot of all things data.

For the last 27 years he’s been helping leaders and organisations think about data and data quality and is at the forefront of the technological developments that are encroaching more and more into businesses every day.

For the self-confessed “data nerds” at DAMA Australia’s latest Data Leadership Breakfast, sponsored by BDO, Informatica, DWS/HCL and Experience Matters, keynote speaker Redman was a rockstar with his four “battle-tested” data fundamentals.

From the importance of quality to the management of data, businesses can reap rewards from Redman’s key tenets.

Redman’s four data fundamentals

1. It really is all about the data

“Blockchain, chat, data lakes, data warehouses – what are those things without lots of high quality data? In Jersey we’d just say ‘Fuhgeddaboudit’. You are not going anywhere with the technology without the data”.

It sounds obvious, but Redman’s first point is often overlooked or underappreciated by business leaders.

The Data Doc said data was the fourth ‘x’, joining land, capital and people as a core part of modern business.

But simply having proprietary data isn’t enough; leaders need to know how to leverage the unique aspects of it to compete in the marketplace.

Tom Redman aka The Data Doc.

“Think about Australia as a travel destination, as a tourist destination. Now you may not know this but it costs a lot of money and takes a lot of time to get here. So how do you compete against Paris and places that are closer?” he asked the audience at the Hilton Hotel.

“The answer is you’ve got the Great Barrier Reef – who else has that? You’ve got the Sydney Opera House, you’ve got Kangaroo Island – you compete on the way that you’re different, and that’s a really important point to keep in mind.

“Nobody else has your data. Your data is unique. All of those little facts and figures about your customers, your market and so forth – they tell stories that can’t be told in any other way. They reveal relationships that don’t come out any other way, and those relationships – those insights – they’re waiting for you to put them to work.”

1. Separate the management of your data from the management of your information

The Data Doc kicked off the discussion on his second ‘fundamental’ by drawing a comparison to the evolution of how we watch movies.

From the theatre to the home TV which evolved with VHS then DVD and finally streaming – the way in which we consume content these days has made the experience more and more convenient.

“But here’s the thing: streaming does not change a bad movie into a good movie,” Redman said.

“These are two separate kinds of beasts. You need both – you need the content and the technology to really enjoy a movie but they’re managed separately.

“Your data is like the content, it’s like the movie, and the technology is like the streaming service. And just as they are separated in a larger world, so you must separate inside your organisation.”

He said leaders would often conflate data and information management – a major mistake according to the Doc.

“The number one mistake you can make is subordinating the content to the technology – subordinating the data to IT,” he said.

1. Quality matters

“You know the drill: garbage in, garbage out,” said Redman, reiterating a tried-and-true mantra for the data heads in the room.

“People have been citing maxims and then ignoring them since at least as long as I’ve been around, right?”

Though an obvious point, Redman said many leaders still didn’t realise the importance of quality data and its impact on productivity.

“Quality and productivity are linked. Delivery quality and productivity goes up,” he said.

According to Redman, a third of workers’ time is spent on non-value-added activities, with many spending large chunks of time at work just dealing with data issues in order to do their jobs.

“Some dollar signs are going off in people’s minds – this spells opportunity,” he said.

“The good news is it doesn’t have to be that way. Attack data quality in the proper way. Teach people how to do it, give them a certain amount of tools and support and great things happen.

“Rather than finding and fixing these errors we’ll get to the root cause of them and we’ll make them go away.”

1. It’s all about people

In an almost antithetical fashion for a data event, Redman’s final point was about the importance of human beings.

Though quality, well-organised data is important: “you’re not going anywhere in your organisation, you’re not doing digital transformation, you’re not doing AI at scale, you’re not doing anything without people. People are number one,” he said.

“People really like working on data. Put them in the right direction, give them a little bit of a tool, a little bit of training, and you’re going to love the results.”

He added that Australian businesses had a “distinct advantage” on this front too.

“There is a distinct Australian advantage. I get to go all over the world and there is a ‘we not me’ team spirit here that quite frankly I don’t see anywhere else in the world,” he said.

“I bet no one came in here thinking we were going to have a discussion about data and human empowerment, but there it is.”