Data Governance The Right Spectrum of People, Process, and Technology

The way data is growing these days through multiple data generation channels; organizations have started planning data governance programs. Also, the data movement to the cloud, awareness of consumers about their data privacy rights, regional compliance and regulatory requirements have raised the need for reliable data governance programs.

Now the question is, is data governance is a need for every organization, or is it only required by organizations having a specific volume or complexity of data? To answer this question, first, we need to understand the three pillars of the right data governance programs, including People, Process, and Technology.

People: The people part is the most crucial one, as they are the stakeholder who needs to act in different roles to create and adopt the process and later on have to own it. Well-trained human resource is also necessary to eliminate digital disruptions and to run the data governance operations smoothly.

Process: An accurate process is the second principal component as it will derive the entire program to implement the policies and procedures in accordance with industry compliance requirements and standards. The absence of a fully functional process can limit the success of data governance programs.

Technology plays a pivotal role in implementing the right process for data governance. With recent advancements in technology, AI is being used to perform real-time governance on data assets. Otherwise, the expanding volume of data can cripple the work process.

To answer the above question, large enterprises, especially from the Financial, Telecom, and Pharma sectors, need to invest in all three areas as they have more focused regulatory compliance requirements. Enterprises need to establish a solid framework for people and processes and need support from AI-based technologies to meet emerging data governance needs. The future-ready organizations need to introduce the role of Chief Data Officer to support enterprise-wide data governance. Technology selection will be the crucial decision to bring maximum ROI out of the governance programs.

Mid-size organizations might not be ready to invest in technology due to huge costs. However, they should still start investing in people and processes to establish a roadmap that can later lead towards full-blown implementation after technology adoption. People, processes and technology, work collectively towards the right execution of data governance frameworks.

To conclude, It's the right time for organizations to start thinking about the data governance strategies as the need will grow with upcoming changes in business practices, compliance requirements, and emerging laws. Enterprises also need to understand that a complete data governance strategy will also help them use data more intelligently to understand consumer behaviours.