If there's anything a company can be accused of, it's hoarding data. Often, organisations are afraid to delete a record in case it could be useful for a later transaction or inform a strategic decision.

However, when all those old files add up, it's virtually impossible to sort through them to find the needed data. Storage also becomes a challenge, one that many groups have tried to solve by moving their databases to the cloud. But data migration programs carry their own sets of issues, as Royal Mail recently learned.

Anh Nguyen writes for Computerworld UK that the country's postal service is still struggling to smooth out the bugs from moving online data to different servers. As a result, some customers were charged the wrong price or were unable to access certain services.

When undertaking a data migration project, ensuring files are accurate can make the process a little less cumbersome.

For instance, if you were moving customer records from one server to another, running address validation software could help get rid of incorrect or duplicate entries. This cuts down on the volume that must be transferred and guarantees that the company realizes the improvements it was seeking in a new database.