Poor data Is driving hidden business costs and slowing Enterprise AI adoption
Poor-quality data rarely appears as a single line on the balance sheet, yet its impact can be felt across productivity, transformation, decision-making and AI investment. Will Hiley, Head of Solutioning, Syniti, part of Capgemini, says as organisations accelerate their adoption of AI, the cost of unreliable information is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
Most business leaders understand that data matters. Reliable information supports better decisions, improves operational efficiency and provides the foundation for successful transformation programmes. Yet while organisations increasingly recognise the strategic value of data, far less attention is paid to the financial and operational cost of information that is not truly fit for purpose.
Poor data is expensive, but its cost is difficult to measure because it rarely appears as a distinct item on a management report. Instead, the impact is distributed throughout the organisation.
Employees spend hours checking information before using it. Finance teams reconcile conflicting figures. Executives delay decisions while numbers are verified. Sales teams maintain separate spreadsheets because they do not completely trust corporate systems. Operational teams develop manual processes to compensate for missing, duplicated or inconsistent information.
Individually, these activities can appear relatively insignificant. Across a large organisation, however, they represent a substantial hidden cost.
The gap between usable and business-ready data
Many organisations operate with data that is considered acceptable rather than genuinely reliable. Reports can still be produced, applications remain operational and employees have learned how to compensate for inconsistencies This creates an important distinction between data that is technically usable and information that is genuinely business-ready.
A finance department might reconcile figures manually before presenting them to senior management. Sales representatives may maintain personal spreadsheets alongside the CRM platform. Operations employees can find themselves validating information before acting on it because previous experience has taught them not to assume that the system is correct.
Over time, these behaviours become normalised. They are absorbed into everyday working practices and eventually become almost invisible. Yet every manual check, correction and reconciliation consumes resources that could otherwise be directed towards customers, innovation or growth. Multiply a seemingly insignificant task across hundreds or thousands of employees and the cumulative impact can become substantial.
The problem extends beyond direct labour costs. Constantly questioning information introduces friction into processes, reduces confidence in systems and makes organisations slower to respond.
A business may have invested heavily in modern applications but still fail to capture their full value because employees do not trust the information flowing through them. www. intelligentcio. com
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