Data Is Everywhere. Is Yours Under Control?
With the recent rise in data generation, here’s what you need to know about the latest in data governance.
In recent years, there’s been an exponential rise in data generation. The growth of the internet and “smart devices” has increased the ability to generate, capture, and store information, with the result that data is everywhere. It’s generated through everyday activities as people are searching for stuff, looking for directions, buying things, and even walking or talking.
To put this phenomenon into perspective, let us first look at how data is measured — in zettabytes — with one zettabyte equal to approximately one billion terabytes. According to industry experts, in 2012 there were approximately 6.5 zettabytes (or 6.5 billion terabytes) of data floating around the world and in cyberspace. Fast-forward just 10 years to 2022, and that number is expected to have increased almost 15 times to approximately 97 zettabytes (97 billion terabytes).
Businesses are looking to capture and leverage all that data for many purposes, from detecting customer churn to improving service. In addition, there are efforts to creating intelligent technologies for voice recognition, language translation, streaming music and videos, digital documents, self-driving vehicles, and monitoring patients’ health, to name just a few examples.
Why data governance is crucial
There’s often an assumption in business that the data they need was input through systematic mechanisms. But that’s frequently not the case because in addition to their structured data, which can be very specific and easily organized, they’ve acquired a proliferation of unstructured data — pictures, videos, music, and documents — which can be a lot more challenging to handle.
Data governance provides the framework to ensure data discipline, understanding, and management so that “good data” is available to whoever needs it, whenever it is needed to meet their organizational goals. Otherwise, the abundance of unstructured, unorganized data can easily be lost, misrepresented, misused, stolen, or inappropriately manipulated. We can simply look at a few recent examples — along with threats to Uber, Ronin, and Crypto.com — to understand the risk to a company’s reputation and operations.
Data governance plays a critical role in establishing the value of data by identifying what is the most meaningful information for an organization according to timeliness, quality, context, and usability. Data governance also helps classify data and define appropriate security for data sets.
The optimal path: Business owns the data
About 12 years ago, the industry began a push to establish a culture of data within organizations, with the mantra, “Data should be owned by business,” and not the other way around. At the time, data in organizations was overseen by technology experts, who needed a lot more guidance from business leaders to further their organizations’ goals.
Over the years, many groups started to put that mantra into place; today I often hear the rallying cry, “Business owns the data” at conferences and in other settings. But although some businesses introduced a level of data governance a decade ago, many have become complacent in their enforcement or are stumbling, which creates all kinds of risks for their companies.
Data governance in practice
To succeed in this area, it is vital to establish a culture of data from the top down, since any major changes require buy-in from the highest levels to approve funding and resource allocation. A core group also needs to be formed of people with skin in the game and neutral parties, who can provide an objective viewpoint so the organization has a healthy mix of impacted and nonimpacted people.
Three key groups should exist in the data governance organization: the policymakers who create the policies and standards; the coordinators and technology team who enable the appropriate policies and standards; and the enforcers, such as auditors and a review committee.
Slalom brings expertise to help clients in their data governance journey, regardless of the state of governance in their organization. This includes:
- Helping establish a governance organization from the ground up
- Jump-starting a stalled or slow-running governance program
- Assessing existing data governance programs and making appropriate recommendations for improving the programs
- Providing training, guidance, and resources to implement technologies
Key takeaways
Here is a starter checklist to ensure you are using the highest-quality data:
- Ask where the data is coming from.
- Know who is responsible and can answer questions about the data.
- See if there’s meaningful information surrounding the data that benefits organizational objectives so it can be appropriately used.
- Determine who should be using the data.
- Verify that appropriate measures are in place to safeguard data quality and security.
It’s only by committing to the highest standards of data governance that a company can minimize exposure to data breaches while maximizing opportunities for continued growth, using data as a linchpin to achieve business goals.
Slalom is a global consulting firm that helps people and organizations dream bigger, move faster, and build better tomorrows for all. Learn more and reach out today.
