What is a data quality assessment?

DQAs help organizations evaluate current data quality to confirm that the data is accurate, complete, consistent and trustworthy, forming the foundation for data quality assurance practices. Organizations rely on data to drive business outcomes, and its strategic importance continues to grow.

In fact, nearly two-thirds (64%) of surveyed chief data officers identified leveraging data for competitive advantage as their organization’s top priority, according to a recent study from the IBM Institute for Business Value.¹ However, achieving this advantage requires more than just data accessibility—it demands high-quality data.

This is where a data quality assessment proves critical. Rather than being a one-time check, a DQA is a structured process designed to uncover gaps and risks in information quality and recommend corrective actions.

It generally involves profiling datasets, validating them against business rules and analyzing patterns or anomalies that could compromise decision-making. At its core, a DQA answers a critical question: “Can this data be trusted to support the business processes and decisions it was intended for?”

Typically, data quality assessments are performed or overseen by data stewards, data governance teams or business analysts who understand both the technical and business context of the data. In larger organizations, this responsibility may fall under a chief data officer or a dedicated data governance function, working closely with IT and business units to ensure alignment with organizational goals.

A 2025 report from the IBM Institute for Business Value found that 43% of surveyed chief operations officers identified data quality issues as the most pressing data management challenge within their organization.² But despite its importance, many organizations struggle to measure data quality effectively—with major consequences.

According to a report by Gartner, poor data quality costs organizations an average of USD 12.9 million each year. It undermines data analysis, introduces compliance risks and influences the effectiveness of decision-making.

The struggle to measure data quality is due in part to the continuous influx of data from fragmented data sources—such as customer interactions, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, social media and third-party systems—which make it difficult to apply uniform validation rules to information systems. Other common challenges include the absence of standardized metrics and inconsistent governance practices across departments.

Organizations may also lack the toolkits or skills to continuously monitor and assess data quality in real time, leading to reliance on manual checks that are time-consuming and prone to error.

Data and analytics leaders can mitigate these challenges by implementing regular DQAs. Through these assessments, organizations can establish clear benchmarks, identify gaps early and prioritize remediation efforts. A well-executed DQA improves the reliability of data and strengthens governance practices, enabling businesses to excel in analytics-driven decisions.

DQAs confirm that data is accurate, consistent and trustworthy, forming the foundation for data-driven decision-making and advanced capabilities such as artificial intelligence (AI). Other benefits include:

• Improved decision-making
  
• Elevated customer experiences
• Enhanced AI
• Regulatory compliance support

Conducting a DQA often entails following a data quality assessment framework. A data quality assessment framework provides a structured and repeatable process to evaluate, monitor and improve data quality.

The key steps of a data quality assessment framework include:

• Define scope and objectives
• Profile the data
• Establish data quality rules
• Assess data against the rules
• Analyze results and identify issues
• Recommend and prioritize remediation
• Monitor and report

A clear scope and purpose provide a foundation for meaningful results. Organizations often begin their DQA by clarifying which datasets, systems or business domains are included. This process involves determining the role of metadata, as metadata often provides context about data sources, lineage and usage. 

Objectives may vary, for instance, from improving compliance and reducing operational risk to enabling AI initiatives, enhancing reporting accuracy and supporting data dissemination.

Data profiling entails examining the structure, content and relationships within datasets to understand their current state in the data lifecycle. Data quality tools designed for profiling can help detect patterns, anomalies and irregularities such as missing values, duplicates and outliers.

This process could also include reviewing data stored in a data warehouse, where large volumes of integrated information can provide deeper insights into patterns and anomalies.

Creating clear, enforceable rules for dimensions of data quality—such as validity, completeness, timeliness, consistency and uniqueness—is critical to maintaining high standards. These rules serve as benchmarks for evaluating data and help prevent errors before they impact business processes.

Data quality rules often reflect business rules, regulatory obligations and the needs of critical business processes. For instance, validity rules might enforce correct formats for dates or IDs, while consistency rules help maintain uniform naming conventions across systems, ensuring smooth integration within organizational workflow.

Once data quality rules are in place, they are applied to datasets often through automated data quality tools or scripts to measure compliance. Data quality tools increasingly leverage advanced algorithms and machine learning models to automate rule application, detect complex anomalies and predict potential data quality issues before they occur.

Metrics such as accuracy percentages, completeness ratios and error counts provide insights into data quality. These results simplify performance comparisons and pinpoint weaknesses, helping organizations optimize data management. Leveraging scalable assessment processes ensures consistency and efficiency as data volumes and sources grow.

Assessment findings can help organizations pinpoint root causes of data quality problems. Issues may be categorized by severity and business impact, with compliance-related errors often prioritized over minor inconsistencies.

Understanding whether problems stem from data collection, data entry, system integration or outdated processes is key to effective remediation and maintaining overall data integrity. Evaluating how each affected dataset or system function contributes to these issues can further guide targeted corrective actions.

The next step is to determine how to correct identified errors and prevent recurrence. Recommendations can include process adjustments, system enhancements or staff training, all aimed at driving data quality improvement across the organization.

In some cases, remediation may involve redesigning or optimizing data pipelines to ensure cleaner, more reliable data flows. Remediation efforts are usually prioritized based on risk, cost and strategic importance, with quality indicators—such as accuracy, completeness and consistency—helping to identify which issues should be addressed first.

The final step is to create dashboards or reports to track data quality metrics over time, providing visibility to stakeholders. Organizations might implement continuous monitoring processes and data observability practices to ensure standards are maintained as new data flows in from various sources. Regular reporting fosters accountability and supports data quality management and broader data governance initiatives.

By making DQAs an ongoing effort rather than a one-time project, organizations can sustain trust and reliability in their data assets.