Companies have begun to use data to achieve competitive advantage during the last decade moving beyond simple reporting. As the production of data has become much simpler and more cost-effective, data storage systems like data warehouses and data transformation tools began to emerge. The advent of the internet has helped in the storing and production of data and almost 90% of data has been produced in the last decade only.
The study reports from AIxOutlook show that the data volume will rise nearly 35% by 2025. The idea of data being an asset has been changed as enterprises started giving more importance to the data. Organizations from every sector started using data for business purposes and the estimated rate will also increase.
The demand for data governance has been considerably increased after several security breaches. After the major security breaches of brands like Facebook and Yahoo, data security became a concern for organizations and more regulations have come into the scenario. Without data governance, the data won’t be consistent, and accuracy-related issues also arise. Flawed data also may enter the database and quality issues may arise. In an age of digitization, data started to mount on organizations and ultimately it became their duty to protect and safeguard customer data from being misused, manipulated, or abused.
A data governance policy is a must-have for every firm working with big data as it outlines how your company will benefit from a uniform, shared processes, and responsibilities. It also emphasizes the facts in your surroundings that must be properly managed. To guarantee compliance, data governance will ensure that retention obligations are satisfied. Organization stores information in both digital and physical format and most of them are in non-standardized forms. Business entities sometimes keep away from these data due to a lack of reliability and irrelevance. The reliability of data can be assured using the process which helps in better decision making.
Data Governance
The rules, regulations, standards, and other metrics are used to ensure the effective and efficient utilization of data. Data governance ensures that the data is handled securely, quality data is delivered across the organization, and provides information regarding who accessed the data at what time. Data governance enables organizations to reduce risks, get a better understanding of data through better data quality and data mapping. It also helps in providing better compliance and management of data, helping in gaining quicker insights.
The major benefits of Data Governance include:
• Better Understanding of data: Data governance provides a clear and consistent view of data which helps easy accessibility of data.
• Data quality enhancement: The quality of data can be raised through the process which ensures that the data used is accurate, consistent, and complete.
• Enhance decision making and business plans: The threat of data silos within a company can be avoided using data governance and the stored data can be used. The organization can also cope with the recent changes in data governance like GDPR and HIPAA regulations.
• Risk Management: The systematically arranged data will reduce the risk by pointing out the possible threat that can arise from a dataset.
• Enhance collaboration: The collaboration between departments can be enhanced through data governance. The enhanced collaboration will bring better output by eliminating the frictions.
Conclusion
Almost all businesses store information regarding their clients, suppliers, employees, and their businesses. The management of these data should be done efficiently to gain better insights. Some organizations are still struggling to manage data and some others have championed it. The new governance and regulations have made it mandated for the organization to have a data governance policy. The operational roles, responsibilities, and strategical and tactical goals of an organization can be handled using data governance.
Results of improved data control allow for more efficient data management strategies, technology, and behaviors at all levels of the company. Governance provides alignment by providing structure and services to everyone from the top leadership team to day-to-day operations.
