Data Governance Challenges & Best Practices

The importance of data in today’s technology-driven business environment needs no introduction. Digital transformation is impossible without the use of data and analytics and achieving day-to-day professional competence. But, for your enterprise to become data-driven, this data should be of high quality, secure, relevant, and accessible. Data Governance ensures this and brings people, technologies, and processes together.

What is Data Governance?

It is the process of managing data and ensuring high availability, usability, and integrity. Data governance involves defining roles, policies, metrics, and standards that govern the use of data in an enterprise. It minimizes risks, meets data compliance laws, increases the value of data, and reduces the costs of managing data.

A well-run data governance program helps your enterprise at every level, be it strategic, tactical, or operational. These practices are being fast adopted in businesses across industries. The Data Governance market which was valued at $1.81 billion in 2020 is expected to reach $5.28 billion by 2026, a testimony to its growing importance.

Common Data Governance Challenge

The importance of business data is continually growing. As organizations capture data from different touchpoints and their volumes surge, it is posing new challenges to the quality, security, and usability of data. Let us turn our attention to some of the common data governance challenges that you need to be aware of –

Absence of Data Strategy

Small and medium enterprises have limited resources to run an effective data governance program. This can lead to a lack of data strategy where other priorities override the importance of allocating resources toward a data governance program.

Poor Data Quality

As organizations generate tons of data, they face the issue of quality. It is a known fact that business data can become obsolete. At least 30% of the data decays every year and this can affect the outcome of all data-related activities. Focusing on data hygiene can improve data governance.

No Leadership

We have already highlighted the role of people in data governance. Data governance isn’t merely a technical process that can be left to automation tools. The absence of a person or team who can give direction to the data governance model in an organization can reduce the impact of the whole exercise.

Siloed Data

Enterprises collect data from various sources that can include multiple touchpoints. This can result in data from various sources becoming siloed. This isn’t an ideal scenario as this can restrict you from reading the broad picture of the market.

Lack of Control

The first step to implementing data governance is to have control over enterprise data. However, many organizations lack basic rules concerning access and use of data. They do not have laid protocols for the storage, management, and retrieval of data.

Data Security Issues

Data security is crucial for every enterprise. But this is one area where there is a lot of ambiguity. Merely storing data in the cloud doesn’t make it secure. Your data remains vulnerable to misuse and unsecured data poses the greatest challenge to data governance.

Data Governance Best Practices

By now you are aware of the importance of data governance and know the common challenges. These challenges can be mitigated when you adopt the best practices of data governance.
Here are some of the things your organization must do to leverage data governance.

# Set Up an Organization-Wide Goal

We have already touched upon the fact that data often remains isolated in silos. As part of your data governance strategy, it is important to have a strategic goal at an organizational level. It should cover all aspects of your business process including revenue, growth, risk mitigation, and efficiency.

# Corral Data from Different Sources

Business data is collected from various sources and across different domains. For instance, your organization may be collecting data from sales, finance, and accounting teams apart from the data you generate about the customers at different touchpoints. Corralling this data should be part of your data governance strategy. This helps your organization have a bird’s eye view of the market.

# Always Focus on The Big Picture

It is important to have the big picture in mind while embarking on a data governance program. As we have already stated, data governance involves people, processes, and technologies and hence you need to create the perfect synergy between the three. Hire the right people, choose the best tools, and set a well-defined process for your data governance objective.

# Build Data Governance Framework

You must have clearly stated policies and rules on the use and access of your data. How is the data used in the organization? Who has access to the data and who monitors it? Who oversees quality standards and compliance norms? You should build a solid data governance framework that gives direction to your team on the use of this data. There should be no ambiguity in the process. It is important to define the roles of individuals and teams with clearly set deliverables.

# Incorporate Metrics into Data Governance

A data governance model sans metrics would be of little use to your organization. Your team must be able to use data objectively and map progress against the goals. It is important to incorporate measurement metrics and analytics into the model right from the start. This would make the model usable and productive for your organization.

# Educate the Team on the Importance of Governance

This might sound obvious, but it is often one of the most overlooked aspects of data governance. You can achieve success with these practices when it is followed at every level in the organization. It isn’t the responsibility of select individuals or a team but should become part of the organization’s work culture.

Final Thoughts

You can see why data governance is about people, processes, and technologies. A well-managed data governance model offers your organization a better understanding of the data. It improves your business process, productivity, and profitability. It is critical for capturing the macro and micro trends in the market and driving your business toward digital transformation.

Many organizations get it right with data governance, while others struggle in the absence of a data governance framework. If you are looking for an expert team that can harness data and accelerates your business growth, book a demo with DiGGrowth—a No-code Marketing Intelligence Platform. Drop us an email at info@diggrowth.com for more information.