What is Data Governance?
Data governance is defined as management of data to validate for accuracy as per the requirements, standards, or rules that an individual organization needs for their individual business.
In my role of delivering Utopia solutions for customers I have observed companies that have implemented and are still implementing high tech ERP systems and applications to manage their business processes. These organizations are very capable of running a business efficiently but not always as well-versed in ensuring the usability and integrity of their data for the long term.
In today’s world many businesses are growing rapidly and each day systems process so many transactions and create vast amounts of new data, some as simple as adding new customer, vendor, material, payments, credits and debits. While entering the data manually or digitally there is always the chance to enter incorrect or duplicate data and that can lead to a big data disaster for decision making and implementing new business strategies.
Companies are starting to realize this and see that their data must be cleansed and enriched to compete and to get the full benefit of their historical and present master and transactional data. To get a better handle on data as a strategic asset, companies are empowering their people as well as technology and processes to manage the long term quality of their data.
Data governance controls the quality of the data and provides consistent and trusted data that business users can rely upon to make critical decisions.
Benefits of Data Governance:
- Making data consistent
- Improving data quality
- Making data accurate, complete
- Maximizing the use of data to make decisions
- Improving business planning
- Improving financial performance
- Maximizing profits of the company
A good data governance process allows companies to know that whether the data they are accessing is current or historical data, it will be reliable and usable for analysis. The benefits of data governance, such as those listed above, are an ROI the company can realize well into the future.
Data is a very important and strategic raw material for any organization. With the higher volume of data streaming into organizations today and the variety of formats, both structured and unstructured, it is critical to get the right information at the right time to the right people to enable the entire organization to grow and capitalize on new opportunities. If an organization understands the full and long term impact of data as a true and valued asset and treats it in a consistent manner through a complete data governance strategy they can use data more intelligently to empower their business for success.
Read more about data governance and how it effects your company long term.
