Emily Cleland

We find a growing number of businesses are either looking to start or optimize data governance programs to better control data, but at Data Governance Winter Conference, we learned that there are often two major roadblocks to implementing or optimizing your data governance program.  Explore how you can navigate these challenges. 

Across nearly every industry, data has become a key driver for critical business initiatives. At the same time, data will only add value to your business when it is trustworthy and actionable. That means there should be a robust and reliable data quality management strategy in place that aligns with the needs of your entire organization. The best way to justify the need for investing in a data quality management strategy is to identify the areas in which it will benefit the business as a whole. Here are the top four reasons to invest in data quality management. 

When a foundation of quality data underpins your business initiatives it has the potential to positively transform your organization. However, a lack of trustworthy data can prevent your organization from maximizing the value of this asset. That’s why it’s essential to ensure that you have strong operational data quality at the foundation of your business. With the right processes and technology in place, you can achieve a trusted data source. If you are struggling to achieve the high-quality data you need, don’t fret! Here are our top 3 tips for maintaining data quality:

Data governance and compliance: it’s safe to say the two go hand in hand. Without proper data governance, how can you be confident your organization is adhering to regulations? On the other hand, when organizations are compliant, you can bet there is an effective data governance strategy in place. If you’re asking yourself, “how can I get started,” we are here to help! First let’s take a look at the terms data governance and compliance, and see how they are related. 

In today’s highly competitive business landscape, the data an organization collects is expected to deliver insight and value back to the business. Therefore, there is an increased focus on the accuracy and reliability of data collected, while there is also the apparent need for business users to have direct access to their data. We are seeing organizations express their commitment to making data-driven decisions, and this is only possible when business users are directly able to understand and leverage data to make these decisions. Despite this growing need, a common problem presents itself when IT is the keeper of an organization’s data, and business users have to wait for insight from the IT that they can understand.

Despite the fact that the importance of data is widely recognized among company executives, there is a gap between this recognition and the number of organizations that are leveraging data to empower business decisions. To close this gap, organizations are investing in data management practices to establish trust and control of their data.

In today’s data-driven world, you will hear buzzwords thrown around like MDM, big data, machine learning, data lakes, etc. But then you may think, how exactly do these concepts apply to my organization and my specific role? How can I deploy the most valuable data management processes? To answer these questions, it is important to understand what modern data management looks like at a high level, and then how are businesses are using modern data management to refine business processes and enable best practices. Understanding the concept of modern data management is the first step in deciding how to enable it in your organization.

It is no secret that the financial industry is completely changing the way that it functions. Financial institutions are expected to have a comparable user experience to retailers, and at the same time continue to uphold regulatory compliance. It is important for financial organizations to understand what steps are necessary in satisfying these marketplace essentials. The more they are able to balance and prioritize compliance and providing a frictionless and automated experience for customers, the more financial institutions are able to remain competitive in a changing industry. 

Last week, our Women in Experian group hosted an event in our Boston office, focused on how to “Achieve our Peak Perforce,” led by Christine Fiske. Christine is a Senior Digital Marketing Freelance Consultant, working primarily with startups and VC firms. Currently, she is working to become a leadership development facilitator and presented her session about achieving peak performance. Here are three takeaways I gained from this unique event: