Data Quality Twists and Turns - How to Move Forward?

There may be many challenges with implementing data quality, like:

• Why should I do data quality - fix it at the source!
• Too costly, time-consuming, resource-intensive
• How to embed and improve data quality management culture

Common Challenges

Challenge 1: Why should I? It’s not my problem.

• Solution: Couple data quality with data governance. Define roles, and responsibilities.
• Decisions, escalations, promote metadata management to identify, resolve issues.

Challenge 2: Doing data quality is costly, time-consuming, and resource-intensive.

• Solution: Focus on issues vital to your business. Implement centralized or decentralized services. Use the right technique: Pareto, Fishbone PDCA.

Challenge 3: How can I cultivate and ingrain data culture?

• Solution: Develop measurement framework, educate, and stimulate data culture. Provide tools and train users to promote adoption.

Key Messages:

• Integrate Data governance with data quality – short and long-term win-win for all
• Identify and resolve business critical issues with the right tools and techniques
• Promote a data management culture for a value-driven approach

Speaker: Sukanya Gopinath and Tony Basil 

Sukanya Gopinath

Sukanya joined the RBC’s Chief Data Office in 2019 and is primarily involved in driving data quality measurement and data quality strategy adoption across the enterprise. Furthermore, she hosts data quality knowledge exchange forums on best practices, tools, and techniques. Prior to joining RBC, her career spanned two decades in the healthcare and human resources industry sectors with roles in data collection and classification, data quality, analysis, reporting, and data governance. Sukanya’s key contributions include: the development of data quality indicators for state/provincial health reporting and successfully leading a client's master data management project for a multi-national corporation.    

Sukanya has a Master’s degree in Commerce (M.Com, M.Phil, CHIM) and believes greatly in continuous learning and mentorship; she recently completed the Data Stewardship, Data Capability Assessment Model (DCAM) certification from the EDM council and was a mentor in the EDM council mentorship sessions in 2022.

Tony Basil 

Tony Basil holds the position of Director, Data Quality Advisory in the Chief Data Office at the Royal Bank of Canada. In this role, he is responsible for driving the implementation of the Data Quality Strategy at RBC and works with Business and IT Stakeholders to implement the Data Quality Roadmap. He has also worked on Enterprise Data Management and Governance programs, setting up frameworks and enhancing data quality capabilities while training and educating people on how to create value from trusted data that is fit for purpose. Prior to joining RBC, Tony worked in several consulting roles focusing on Digital Strategy and Data Architecture projects in multiple industries, including Banking & Financial Services, Healthcare, and Technology & Innovation, across North America, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific regions. Tony holds a Master's degree (MBA) from the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, in addition to being a Computer Science Engineer.