Creating a thriving data quality consultancy in any environment can be tough, especially when the market is small and immature.

In the first of our member profile series, one of our expert panelists, Bryn Davies, discusses his data quality journey and the challenges of delivering a data quality business in Cape Town, South Africa.

Name: Bryn Davies

Role: Managing Director

Company: InfoBlueprint

Location: Cape Town, South Africa

Describe the route your data quality career has taken so far?

For many years I was a distributor of data management and BI software and services solutions, involved in many client engagements.

Over time I realised that there was a common thread that contributed to the success or otherwise of many projects, and that was the quality of the data supporting the solution.

Most often the vendor supplying the software and/or services left the data quality problems for the customer to “sort out”, and made it quite clear that they would have nothing to do with “cleaning” data.

This was a direct threat to the project, as the customers generally had no clue where to start and how to fix data, but they were forced to give it a bash anyway. Inevitably new systems failed or disappointed, not meeting expectations due to “data problems”.

I got involved with data quality software which is extremely helpful, but I realised that there was very little out there to help customers effectively apply this software (many used the tools as glorified ETL engines) and there was very little out there in the way of formal methodologies. 

I decided that something had to be done, so, together with two very experienced partners, set up InfoBlueprint based around a well designed DQ framework supporting a detailed DQ methodology, which we use to guide all our services.

Based in South Africa, what are the challenges in building out a data quality consultancy in that area?

South Africa is a relatively small market compared to Europe and the US for example, but there are many large corporates here, in all sectors, who are facing exactly the same challenges around data quality as everyone else.

I would say that most South African organisations are not as mature in pro-actively tackling data quality problems compared to US/Europe, but there has certainly been a huge change in this over the past few years.

The drivers are all very similar but the big ones that we see are customer centricity, “single-view” type projects, CRM, BI and in the retail space it’s mainly around product information management and supply chain alignment.

What type of data quality services have you developed to cater specifically for this market?

As stated above, our services are guided by our methodology and built around data quality improvement, but we take a holistic approach which typically starts off with data correction but ensures that  we move to sustained prevention of data non-quality, underpinned by sound data management practices.

That’s the high level view and these services are tailored to whatever the client’s objective is – customer centricity, data consolidation, data migration etc.

What are your immediate goals for the future?

To be the leading and most respected DQ solutions provider in Africa.

You recently launched the South African Community of Practice for IAIDQ (International Association of Information and Data Quality) – what are your aims for this and how is that progressing?

Very slowly, as stated earlier the maturity is not quite there yet, but we will continue to “fly the flag” for IAIDQ.

How can people get involved with the IAIDQ CoP in South Africa?

Please contact me via my online profile here at Data Quality Pro (click here) or over at our website contact page (click here).

Do you have plans to extend data quality services into other African countries?

Ultimately we would like to extend our services to anywhere in the world that they are needed, but yes, Africa is the obvious start.

What advice would you have for others starting a data quality consultancy, particularly in smaller markets like South Africa?

I would advise them to make sure that they have a solid value proposition, and to target a specific problem area first, backed up by a credible DQ methodology.

Useful Infoblueprint Resources

• Visit the Infoblueprint website
• "Getting to grips with information quality"
• Data and Information Quality

Additional Resources

Starting a new data quality business or consultancy? You might find these Data Quality Pro articles by our resident business coach Richard White of value:

• Improve your data quality proposition through story-telling
• Do your networking skills need a boost? Learn these essential 5 techniques
• Join Data Migration Pro and get involved in the community
• Request to join the expert panel, get noticed and share your expertise