Sybase has released the final installment of its three-part study entitled Measuring the Business Impacts of Effective Data, which suggests that data center managers should be pushing for maximum financial investment without fear of "disruptive" effects on the IT stack. Measuring the direct correlation between a company’s IT investments and overall business performance, Sybase has tried to illustrate the impact of effective data on operational efficiency.

Exploring how data impacts a company’s asset utilization and delivery of products and services, the study found that small, incremental improvements in data effectiveness can provide substantial savings.

"We’ve shown direct links between data attributes and a company’s financial performance and demonstrated how better data affects financial performance through superior innovation and growth. This final installment complements the previous two by establishing that superior financial performance from better data is also attributable to a corresponding improvement in operational performance,” said professor Anitesh Barua, lead researcher, University of Texas at Austin.

Five attributes of data effectiveness were considered: quality, intelligence, usability, remote accessibility, and sales mobility. According to the research, an improvement in just three of the five data attributes used in the study — quality, sales mobility, and intelligence — can have a dramatic impact on operational efficiency.

“The common theme that flows through each of the three installments of this study is that improving data quality does not have to be a disruptive and costly undertaking. Just by taking incremental steps to improving data quality, organizations can enjoy significant returns in a relatively short amount of time,” said Dr. Raj Nathan, executive vice president & CMO, Sybase.