Data Governance: Take a Holistic Approach to Expand Data Value

According to a report from McKinsey & Company, companies invest between 2.5% to 7.5% of their IT spend on data governance. Many reap the benefits of high-quality data that users easily understand and leverage. 

Solid data governance practices deliver real returns to b2b brands:

• Accurate, complete, trustworthy and consistent data
• Clarify where data is stored, who can access it, and why your business needs it
• Accurate, documented procedures around regulation and compliance activities
• Data security by ensuring no unauthorized access
• Reduce costs associated with other areas of data management
• Foundation for a better resolution for current and future data issues

Do you face constant pressure to deliver high-quality, well-understood, accurate, and complete data to your organization? Maybe it’s time to invest in data governance and make it a more formal strategy.

This article covers key points about data governance, components, benefits and best practices.

What Is Data Governance?

In basic terms, data governance is a strategy of practices and processes for effective management of data assets within an organization. It provides a plan that ensures company data is:

• Documented
• Secured
• Audited
• Trustworthy
• Consistent

What Does Data Governance Involve?

A well-designed data governance program includes:

• Standards and policies to govern data according to business requirements and processes
• A robust plan to implement and support standards and policies
• Security review policy so right people have access to data following compliance guidelines
• Governance team or committee

Why Does Your Organization Need Data Governance?

Around five quintillion bytes of data production occur every day. Organizations use this data to:

• Make informed business decisions
• Optimize operations
• Create new products and services
• Enhance profitability

If data is duplicate, erroneous, disconnected, misleading or unstructured, organizations might fail to achieve these objectives. Hence, data governance plays a significant role.

Best Practices in Data Governance

For expanding the value of data at your organization, data governance is essential and worthwhile. But how to bring it into action is a serious endeavor. These best practices can help you implement a strong data governance strategy.

• First, understand the difference between data governance and data management. The former establishes policies and standards around data, while the latter enacts those policies and standards to compile and use data.
• Create standards for your data and adopt appropriate technologies to enforce those standards during all steps of data processing.
• Ensure your data governance strategy covers the unstructured data that lives in your organization.
• Map your business goals for data governance.
• Create a centralized team to achieve data governance goals. It includes Chief Data Officer (CDO), a data governance manager who runs the program, a data governance committee that makes policy or standards decisions, and data stewards who manage data sets and keep them in order.
• Conduct training and education for relevant teams and stakeholders involved in data governance.
•  Lastly, integrate the data governance mindset into every department. It will help marketing, sales, customer service and product development teams to function smoothly and achieve goals.

Where Next?

Data governance is a game-changer for data-driven companies. The sooner you implement the data governance strategy in your business, the faster you start reaping its benefits.

For more data-related information, we recommend these blog posts:
3 Trends Creating a More Secure Data Privacy Landscape
Why Every Business Needs a Data Strategy in 2021
Timing Is Everything in Data-Driven Marketing
Data Leaders Join True Influence Summit as Valued Sponsors