Today, we are on the cusp of a new era in which AI is changing the landscape of many businesses. Having high quality, usable data is essential for any business that plans on reaping the benefits of the new technology. It is for this reason that data governance became such a hot topic in the previous year and remains an important goal of many companies.

What is Data Governance?

Governance of data is a comprehensive means of ensuring that data is available and in a usable form for all departments. DG also ensures that data is consistent and secure.

Other Reasons for Governance of Data?

Other than AI and its need for high quality data, there are a few more reasons that all businesses need to create a robust DG system for their firm. For one, Entrepreneur Magazine spoke of the fact that businesses that will succeed now and in the future will need to have data on their customers to ensure that they can upsell and resell as well as provide their client base with new products.

Businesses with the proper data on their customers will find ways to enrich their interactions with their customer base. Companies that do a better job of utilizing the data from their own customer base to increase sales will fare a lot better in the next economic downturn and beyond.

According to Forbes Magazine, when database managers look at data that is clean, they will more likely be able to count upon making projections from the data that can be relied upon as being valid. Also, companies that find data errors end up wasting both time and money in order to clean the data to the chosen format. Forbes warned that the process of data cleansing, absent a unified plan for what data needs to be gathered, can end up with key data being lost in the data cleansing process.

Those same companies that are collecting, cleaning and collating data on existing customers can also collect data on the fence sitters in order to improve their conversion ratio.

Proper governance of data also eliminates the possibility of regulatory compliance issues. In many cases, organizations such as those in finance and insurance need to have a set of formal data management procedures so that they can demonstrate they govern data throughout its entire lifecycle. Otherwise, they are open to fines and lawsuits for not providing adequate security for sensitive customer data.

How to Set Up a DG Management Group

According to Entrepreneur, it is key that the buck for DG has to stop somewhere, but every department needs to have a stake in DG. Thus, every department in your organization needs to have a representative on a group that is in charge of DG management. The representative from each department to the DG team will be able to explain their needs that data be in a certain format and what types of data they utilize. This DG group will also decide upon the best means of keeping data clean through its acquisition phase and the rules for use of the data.

Buy-In Needed From All

Entrepreneur Magazine states that all businesses that utilize a DG model need to garner buy-in from everyone in the organization, not just those in the DG group. Also, they emphasized the need for all employees to be able to do data analysis. Thus, every member of your team needs to be data literate or must receive in-service training until they are data literate. One of the biggest reasons for maintaining all of this data is to use the data to help make business decisions.

Security Measures

Forbes stated that one key in securing the data is to ensure that each user of data gets one advisor from the DG group who can provide information and assistance when users of the data have questions. Also, it is key that users only have access to the data that they need and not to the entire database, unless it is all germaine to their work.

DG is Ongoing

It is important to realize that governance of data is ongoing in any organization. Companies that first begin seriously engaging in DG need to begin on a small scale, with the governance team analyzing current data practices and making the most meaningful changes first.

As your organization grows to mature governance procedures, the DG team will continue to work as the needs for more data and the rules that revolve around that data need to be enacted. Also, this team will be the experts that members of their departments will call upon to answer questions about the data.

Companies that put in place a robust data governance structure and then utilize the data to enrich their customer’s experience and interactions with their company will be blessed with longevity and a high ROI. Those companies will survive in the tough times. Companies that fail to provide a strong governance structure for their data run the risk of not deriving all of the profits they can from interactions with customers. They also run the risk of regulatory fines