Data managers need to rebuild the trust of data jaded by the inability of analysts to use financial information to predict or avoid the Credit Crunch, according to Sean Taylor, director at Deutsche Bank Wealth Management. Taylor outlined a “Four Rs” approach to data quality that could help managers in their challenge to rebuild the credibility of data services post-Crunch.

For Taylor, financial data services need to be relevant, reliable, robust and repeatable. By adopting a defined approach to data management, he says, practitioners can begin to rebuild the trust of the user constituency.

This, he says, starts with data entry. Too many data management operations begin with what he calls the ‘gigolo’ effect, denoting garbage in, garbage out, lack of ownership. Appropriate data cleansing processes need to be in place, thereby reducing the likelihood of inconsistent or duplicated data. And data managers need to accept – and make clear to stakeholders – that data management is not purely an IT problem; data as an asset meeting the Four Rs criteria requires input from all interested parties.

In order for data to become what Taylor calls “an intrinsic commodity to our business” it must be consistent across business silos. He believes that the marketplace suffered from a surfeit of data during the run-up to the Credit Crunch that was difficult for humans or their computer-based applications to understand.

He believes that firms must undertake a strategic rethink of the data management processes in the wake of the crisis if they are to address that lack of understanding. Many firms, he points out, took far too long to realize their exposure to Lehman Brothers’ default, for example, he says. Even where data was available, the ability to communicate the meaning to those who needed it.