Extract from Onna’s article “10 Best Practices for Implementing an Effective Data Governance Framework”
Data is likely your organization’s most valuable asset — or, at least, it could be. But chances are that it’s also one of your most underused and underappreciated assets.
Every data source has the potential to yield a rich store of information that could advance your business goals and enhance performance across your company. A recent study by BCG and Google demonstrated how maximizing the value of your data can drive revenue growth, improve organizational resilience, and unlock new opportunities with AI.
Yet, perhaps counterintuitively, the more data you have, the less value you’re likely to obtain from it.
How can that be? The more data you have, the more you need to manage, and the more difficult that management becomes. It’s hard to keep track of where your data is and what it means. Some data sources may not be compatible with other platforms or formats. This can lead to conflicting interpretations or, worse, ignoring your data because it’s just too complicated and costly to untangle. Ultimately, the unmanaged pile of data impedes your organization’s ability to make decisions or pivot in response to new information, putting you ever further behind your competition. Instead of being an asset, ungoverned data is a burden.
Data governance is the key to building a strong data foundation and unlocking the value of your data. Using the following best practices, you can build a robust data governance framework that will help your organization improve the quality of its data and, in turn, give you access to the insights buried within.
