Recent Forrester Research on top trends in Enterprise Architecture brings encouraging news as it confirms that businesses are beginning to recognize the value of our key propositions. The research highlights that leading firms now acknowledge the significance of data governance in driving the success of various initiatives, including master data management. Consequently, data governance is reemerging as a focal point for the year ahead.

Key Findings:

Data governance, data quality, and master data management initiatives require a collaborative effort between the business and IT to achieve success.

This critical lesson is still being learned by many companies, but leading organizations now understand the pivotal role of data governance in ensuring the triumph of enterprise data and process initiatives.

The Evolution of Data Governance in South Africa:

In South Africa, the concept of data governance initially gained traction in the banking industry with a primary focus on risk management.

However, these early attempts faced challenges in gaining broad buy-in from the rest of the business, possibly due to the perception of excessive focus on risk to the exclusion of other areas.

Additionally, these implementations struggled to demonstrate measurable returns due to inadequate investment in data quality and data governance tools that could effectively support the business community. The reliance on spreadsheets and SQL scripts proved insufficient for business users to assess the improvement of enterprise data management.

Shifting Perspectives and Data Governance Success Stories:

Fortunately, a shift has occurred in our client base, encompassing not only those in the banking industry but also other sectors.

For instance, a global mining company, one of our clients, has successfully deployed Trillium Software’s data profiling technology. With just a few days of skill transfer to the user, they have been able to measure and manage data quality issues affecting their weekly HR reporting.

Throughout the year 2012, they plan to extend the use of similar solutions to other areas in alignment with their data governance strategy.

Changing Focus in Financial Services:

Within the financial services sector, we have observed a shift from a risk-centric view to a data-centric view.

Our clients now recognize the importance of evaluating data used for multiple purposes based on the needs of all key stakeholders. To facilitate this, they have adopted Precisely Trillium, a tool that enables comprehensive assessment.

It boils down to a practical application of data governance and data profiling to address an immediate business need. “We know we have data quality issues that are affecting key business processes. We don’t know what these are so we don’t know where to begin to fix them!”

Simple metrics that support the business, delivered with a tool that can be used by the business, allow the second question to be answered. Businesses can immediately establish where to focus attention, do root cause analysis, and re-mediate identified issues. 

Conclusion

By practically applying data governance to address immediate business needs, companies can identify data quality issues, prioritize their attention, perform root cause analysis, and remediate identified issues. This fact-based approach empowers businesses to make informed decisions and achieve the best return on their investments, particularly in challenging economic times.