Organizations often treat data governance as a temporary solution – like an aspirin – to address immediate pain points, such as regulatory deadlines. However, there is a paradigm shift that organizations should embrace: viewing data governance as a vital and essential vitamin for their data ecosystem.

By integrating data governance principles systematically, businesses can unlock competitive advantage and gain long-term value.

The Tactical Trap

We all recognise the temptation to deliver tactical solutions:

• We need a business glossary for our initial commitment to the regulator for BCBS 239
• We need to classify sensitive data to protect customer privacy
• We need to source critical customer data, from several business areas, to support our advanced customer analytics capability

Data Governance as an Aspirin

In each of the above examples, information is the centre point.

We may feel the need for information governance, at a project level, in order to meet some of the demands of each project.

In this case, decision-making would typically have a tactical, project focus. Documentation would be limited to the specific project requirements and perspectives, and may only be shared with and available to the project team.

Data governance is taking place to remove an immediate headache. But it delivers minimal, if any, long-term value.

Shifting to Dynamic Data Governance

In recent years we have seen a shift in healthcare. Rather than quick-fix treatments for the symptoms of ill health, we have seen a shift back to the causes – such as lack of exercise and a poor diet. Daily vitamin supplements have become a way of life as we seek to improve and maintain our health.

Data Governance as a Vitamin

Similarly, if we are to create healthy data, and a data-driven culture, within our business we need to integrate data governance principles systemically into our business, information and development life cycles. By crowd-sourcing data governance we make the task manageable, engage our stakeholders, and deliver lasting value.

Here are five reasons why organizations should treat data governance as a vitamin:

1. Building Trusted Data: Information is a powerful asset, but its potential remains untapped if there is a lack of trust in the data. Data governance fosters engagement with data by defining clear data requirements, standards, policies, and sources. When decision-makers have transparency in these aspects, trust in the data naturally follows.
2. Reducing Frustration and Conflict: Data is a shared resource and a tactical approach often results in conflicting changes that impact multiple stakeholders. With data governance, enterprises gain a comprehensive understanding of data usage and its impact on various stakeholders. This transparency fosters collaboration and trust among teams.
3. Reducing Rework and IT Costs: Treating data governance as a vitamin eliminates redundant efforts across projects. By identifying shared data requirements and prioritizing enterprise-wide needs, data governance facilitates knowledge sharing and reuse. This approach optimizes resources, reduces project risks, and cuts costs.
4. Reducing the Regulatory Burden: With the growing number of regulations and compliance requirements, a project-based approach becomes inefficient. Data governance establishes a shared framework for regulatory data policies, standards, and traceability. This framework allows organizations to address new regulatory requirements efficiently and build upon existing work.
5. Understanding the Enterprise Impact of Data: Data plays a crucial role in modeling the business. However, without a systemic data governance approach, understanding data relationships and their business impact becomes challenging. Data governance helps build an enterprise knowledge base, enabling stakeholders to assess and manage the business impact of proposed changes effectively.

Of course, there are numerous other advantages to treating data governance as a vitamin. What are some of your reasons for embracing data governance as a critical element in your data strategy?

In conclusion, adopting data governance as a vitamin rather than an aspirin empowers businesses to create a data-driven culture and ensure the health of their data. Embrace the power of systematic data governance to unlock the full potential of your enterprise information asset.