
Data is without any doubt the most important and asset in an organization. To achieve organizational goals and objectives, it is important to manage data effectively. However, if you want to make the processes efficient, you need data governance as well.
At times it becomes confusing for some people to differentiate between data management and data governance. They tend to take it in the same spirit. While both terms deal with data, it makes sense that they can be found confusing.
But, to clearly understand them to let’s take the example of a house. House management is all about making required items available and making sure all facilities are present and working. For example, house management includes that the house must have good furniture, electrical appliances, groceries, and other supplies, fuel for the car, and so on.
When it comes to house governance, it is more like rules and policies that are implemented in a home. House governance examples are setting a curfew time, who will refill the car, what should be the protocol to do a certain task, and so on.
Based on this analogy, we can easily understand what data governance and data management mean. While data management is the process of acquiring, storing, protecting, and analyzing data; data governance is a set of rules and policies that govern this data.
These rules are important for all employees because all operations on data are carried out based on these rules. Whether there is a need for data creation, storage, transmission, or preparation; it must be done following a defined protocol and instructions.
Need for Data Governance
As the size of the organization grows, and more operations start adding up; Formal bi becomes critical because it becomes complex as well time-consuming to manage or use data. If you need to break down data silos and ensure consistency, formal Data Governance Consulting is required. At times it is a legal and regulatory requirement, therefore companies need data governance.
Reasons You Need Data Governance
In the past, report generation was the task given to the IT department because they had all the data with them. Managing data was their responsibility. As only one department was handling the data, there were lesser chances of data mismanagement.
However, as more and more people required data for performing various operations, the need for data governance became crucial because enforcing standards is easier if the user is only one department. As data is required by all departments, it has become important to devise rules and principles to prevent an organization from data chaos. Let’s discuss 6 scenarios that call for data governance.
1. Bad Decisions Making
Data that is being used by multiple departments lose credibility in the absence of rules or protocols. Based on bad information, manipulated without any protocol, further processing can lead to bad decision-making. Therefore, data governance is required.
2. Time waste leads to missing opportunities
A chaotic data needs too much time to access the required data. Productivity of resources cannot be tapped completely if there is too much time wasted in accessing the required information. With data governance, you can ensure data consistency. This can enhance productivity and help achieve organizational goals effectively.
3. Inability to remain competitive
As data cannot be accessed efficiently or in time, and an organization’s resources are being wasted significantly; you cannot react fast. Due to bad decision-making, a business starts suffering to an extent that it is left far behind its competitors in the industry. Data governance is helpful in such scenarios as it ensures good data available at the right time to the right person.
4. Unreliable Data
In the absence of data directives, rules, and protocols, data can be changed or altered by unauthorized parties, while the change remains un-communicated to the relevant stakeholders. The unreliable data present a bad picture of the organization and affects its reliability. Data governance makes sure that all the information is authentic and reliable.
5. More time is spent in sorting data
With bad data, analysts must spend more time sorting and organizing data. They are continuously preparing and cleaning data instead of using it for organizational purposes.
6. Increased Cost of management
Unmanaged and bad data that needs correction and management now and then, consume a lot of time and resources. Since you must correct it frequently, the cost of data management rises significantly, draining your budget. This increases management costs.
Contoural Inc
For high-quality and effective data governance consulting, get in touch with Contoural Inc. Our professional and experienced records management consultants will help keep your organizational records in order so that you can use them efficiently and effectively, without wasting any resources.