Smartphones are transforming our lives as consumers and employees. More businesses are starting to adopt bring-your-own-device policies in the workplace, which means a growing number of workers will be using mobile devices to perform their daily duties. Learning how to maintain contact data quality, even on a smartphone, will be a vital component of list management in the future.

Writing for the SmarterSoftware blog, application and solution developer Thorsten Radde gives the example of having several variations on the spelling of and listings for a fictional contact, "Martin McFly," on his iPhone.

The same duplication problems that occur in a computer network can carry over to an iPhone contact book. Having four different listings for the same person creates a lot of confusion - are there multiple addresses? Which is right? Are the other listings still valid, or merely secondary? What file should you pick to be the "golden record" as you work to cleanse your database of errors and inaccuracies?

"There is no good answer if you have more than one record for a person," Radde concludes. "Things get easy if you have just one record for Marty … you'll see what other addresses you already have for Marty when you enter a new one, so you can delete those that are no longer valid."

Without a list cleansing program, this issue will persist in the years to come.