Big data is knocking. Are you ready to open the door?

In today’s rapidly evolving business environment, big data can seem like an uninvited house guest who brought along a hundred of his friends. While every enterprise wants to be a gracious host, managing this rapid influx of data can be overwhelming. And before you know it, the chatty, beer-carrying data you let in will be watching your Netflix and getting crumbs all over your couch, while you pace frantically in the kitchen wondering how you’ll ever get them under control.

The amount of data that enterprises must manage increases every day, and much like those messy house guests, it needs to be managed. This is what the 2016 Enterprise Data World (EDW) Conference aims to address. This year’s conference is all about harnessing information to transform organizations into data-driven powerhouses.

Customer data can provide a lot of value to businesses. We recently surveyed 1,400 organizations as part of our annual global data management benchmark report and found that 98 percent of companies have a desire to turn data into insight. From refining the efficacy of marketing campaigns to improving corporate decision-making, data can help enterprises cut costs and drive revenue.

A lot of these organizations, however, lack the data governance or data management practices necessary to keep out bad data or to ensure that their current data is still accurate. To that end, our survey revealed that 23 percent of customer and prospect data within organizations is believed to be inaccurate.

With diminished trust in the accuracy of their data, it’s no surprise that business leaders have doubled-down on their efforts to improve data quality. According to our study, 64 percent of organizations that plan to introduce a big data strategy in the next 12 months have assigned 25 percent of their IT budget towards it, on average. Given that one-quarter of IT spending will be targeted at big data projects, it’s clear that organizations are beginning to understand the implications that bad data can have on decision-making.

At this year’s EDW conference, speakers will present on topics covering big data, data governance, data management strategies, data ethics, and other related topics that will help organizations make the most out of their information. We’re excited to hear from these experts about how data is impacting the enterprise community and how these businesses are addressing their data challenges.

Will you be attending EDW 2016? Let us know in the comments below!