What is Data Governance?

Data governance is a set of policies that helps to ensure data is usable, accessible and protected. Effective data governance leads to better data analytics, which in turn leads to better decision making and improved operations support. Data governance also helps to avoid data inconsistencies or errors in data, which lead to integrity issues, poor decision making, and a variety of organizational problems. It leads to improved data quality, decreased data management costs, and increased access to data for all stakeholders. The result is better decision making and better business outcomes.

Key objectives

Every organization’s plans will look different but there are some overarching objectives to keep in mind as a data governance strategy is developed and implemented in order to increase effectiveness. The key objectives of data governance are:

A proper usage of data
This helps to prevent data errors and the misuse of sensitive data. The best way to meet this objective is through clear policies on data usage and effective procedures to monitor and enforce those policies.
Compliance of all regulatory requirements
Throughout all phases of development and implementation, regulatory requirements are mandatory and cannot be deviated from.
Improvement of data security
All data must be secure and there should be no unauthorized data access.
Creation and enforcement of data distribution policies
To whom and how data should be distributed plays an important role in preventing the unauthorized use or access of data.

Data governance brings meaning to an organization’s data by adding trust and understanding to an organization’s data through stewardship, thus accelerating digital transformation across the enterprise. Data governance is here to stay due to the fact that making business decisions based on data isn’t going anywhere but instead, expanding. An increasing number of businesses are turning to data analytics to optimize their performance, but to get the best analysis out of your data, a well-organized, clean data set is essential in a company’s performance and efficiency.

Data governance is not just a one-off project or program, it needs to be dynamic. Data practices require continuous evolution as the company and market changes. It’s important to consistently check on the changing needs of business users, invest in technology that pivots towards automating data processes and remember the importance of data governance to accelerate digital transformation.