Digital transformation is real, and it is upon us. It’s a matter of “disrupt or be disrupted.” For data governance to accelerate digital transformation, it has to evolve like the world around it. Specifically, it needs to become faster, more collaborative, and more transparent. Your entire organization will need to be able and willing to access your data. You will need cultural buy-in from your users and you will need to implement a data governance program. Firstly, to enable the implementation of digital transformation, secondly, to track its progress, and finally, to enable collaboration, which will thereby bring every part of your organization – users, processes, policies and so on – together.

 

According to the leading analysts at Gartner, data governance is “the specification of decision rights and an accountability framework to ensure appropriate behavior in the valuation, creation, storage, use, archiving and deletion of information. It includes the processes, roles and policies, standards and metrics that ensure the effective and efficient use of information in enabling an organization to achieve its goals.”

 

Technology has transformed the enterprise in our digital era. The rise of the cloud, modular platforms, Big Data and artificial intelligence has led to an exponential increase in the volume, velocity, and variety of data every enterprise now has to manage. But utilizing some of these new innovations is also the key to reimagining data governance. Organizations must fuel data governance to ensure regulatory compliance, comply with GDPR, protect and verify customer data.

 

We observe four major elements for successful reimagined data governance programs:

1.      Security

The security of your data has always been paramount but the stakes have never been higher. Not only is the value of data rising, threats are growing increasingly complex and regulations are becoming stricter. To make matters worse, customer awareness of breaches, and the risk they’re exposed to, is at an all-time high. Your data needs to be protected wherever it lives, and this process starts with data governance. When you can detect exactly where your data resides you can implement intelligent data protection strategies to safeguard it.

2.      Collaboration

Data governance is a team sport and there needs to be constant communication between everyone involved. Data stewards and policy and process owners need to be able to share content and practices between themselves so they can see what’s working and what isn’t. Meanwhile, IT needs to constantly communicate with the business so that it can align its architecture, workflows, and infrastructure investments with the goals and policies the business really cares about.

3.      Speed

Whether you’re the disruptor, or being disrupted, you need to move quickly (and maybe break things, challenging the status quo). An effective data governance program needs to keep pace. It needs to be adaptable, progressive and, most importantly, efficient. If it takes you months to complete the data discovery process or weeks to generate a report, then you can’t prove its value. Learning and adapting in real-time is a critical skill.

4.      Scale

Your data governance initiative can, and often should, start small. But if it’s to support your data-driven digital transformation it must evolve into an enterprise-wide program. That calls for two kinds of capabilities: to deal with the sheer volume and variety of data that needs to be governed in different applications and systems; and to support the distinct needs of different lines of business.

 

Our observation has been that most Data Governance programs struggle with reconciling the major elements of successful data governance programs physical realisations in applications and systems. We have found that Informatica’s data governance platform is one such offering which consists of a collection of products that have been built on top of the Informatica Intelligent Data Platform to create successful automation of Data Governance.

 

About Simetric International

Simetric International is a multi-national company established in 2002 as a leading consulting firm for Data Governance, Digital Transformation, and Risk Management able to cater to Data requirements of any organization. The focus of our work is to fuel Data Governance and ensure regulatory compliance while empowering the business with Digital Transformation strategies.  Simetric’s loyal partnerships with leaders in the technology industry include:

• Informatica; leading U.S. based Enterprise Data Management platform that provides Data Quality, Data Integration, Data Security, Data Governance, Big Data Management, Master Data Management solutions
• 01 Systems: global company who has led digital transformation initiatives for the largest banks globally that offers Signature Management System, an enterprise document management System, a Business Process Management System, and Biometric Authentication.
• AFS: a leader in the Middle East in enterprise risk management and regulatory reporting company to manage ensure CAR, IFRS9, ALM, FTP (Funds Transfer Pricing), and Profitability management and reporting are met.