When confronting customer records or other databases where list management and/or contact data quality has not been made a priority, what you think you're looking for may be in a different format, could be outdated, or may not exist at all.

Jim Harris writes for The Data Roundtable that when undergoing data analysis or governance projects, businesses and data stewards also need to be wary that they don't jump to conclusions or only see the answers they want to see in the information that is there. Harris also points to a January blog post on SmartData Collective, in which Rob Armstrong speaks out against confusing the quantity of the data with its quality - just because there's lots of it doesn't mean it's useful.

"When you are using data to support reasonable business action, what you are looking at can greatly influence what you are looking for (and vice versa)," Harris explains.

He adds that with this in mind, companies will need to avoid putting on blinders and only seeing the answers that they want to get. This can be especially problematic if you are looking to have data that gives you good news, "which could cause you to jump to the comforting, but false, conclusion that what you see is all there is," Harris says.