Did you know that poor data governance costs companies an average of $15 million per year? (Gartner)
The term “data governance” emerged in the 1990s as a response to the growing need for organizations and businesses to manage their data more effectively. Since then, data governance is now a critical component of business operations, as it ensures high-quality, secure, and easily accessible data for deeper business insights through the implementation of policies and standards.
Data Governance is the process of managing the organization, usability, integrity, and security of a company’s big data. This is done by defining and managing the policies, procedures, and standards of this data to have effective business insights to increase profitability, reduce risk, improve data quality, and promote data analytics.
“The process of managing the availability, usability, integrity, and security of an organization’s data asset.”
Poor data governance can impact a company significantly if not managed properly. One example of this is the Equifax data breach in 2017.
Equifax suffered a data breach that exposed the personal information of 147 million people due to poor data governance practices – which included a lack of proactive troubleshooting of a known vulnerability in their web app software, poor password management practices, and a need for a comprehensive data security framework.
As a result, Equifax faced numerous lawsuits and saw a drop in its stock price, which serves as a reminder of the importance of effective data governance practices.
With the ever-increasing importance of data in today’s business landscape, the need for effective data governance is only set to grow.