SAO PAULO, May 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Promoted by QIBRAS - Qualidade da Informacao Brasil and sponsored by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the 1st International Conference on Information Quality was held yesterday (May 13) in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The co-founders of the association, Guilherme Rocha (System Marketing) and Flavio de Almeida Pires (Assesso), underscored the importance of forming the Association, whose creation in February 2010 was the result of studies undertaken in partnership with MIT a year ago.  

Representing MIT, John Talburt, post-graduate professor of Information Quality at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock, opened the morning discussion, during which he said, "The creation of QIBRAS is extremely important. I am highly optimistic that the association will mean increased business in Brazil."

Frank Block, information quality consultant with UBS/Switzerland bank, had this to say, however, "Information management in companies should not be a privilege of the IT area, but be associated with the company's line of business and management of the business."

Survey - An instant survey conducted with the purpose of gauging the significance of the subject in national and international companies with presence in the Brazilian market showed its high degree of importance: 86% of respondents noted a high or very high level of impact of information quality on their organizations, while the medium, low and very low indexes were 9%, 2% and 3%, respectively.

In the afternoon, Michael Mielke, president of the German Society of Information Quality, addressed the idea of information quality from the standpoint of common sense. "It's important to learn how to correct data, apply methods, measure results and be aware of the fact that poor information quality is detrimental to the organization."

Closing the meeting, Larry English, one of the world's most highly regarded leading authorities on information management, defended the use of techniques and principles to ensure alignment of information quality management with the fundamentals of quality management in general.

SOURCE QIBRAS