By Jim Orr, Director, Enterprise Data Strategy, Harte-Hanks Trillium Software
The great thing about a new year is that it rekindles hope and expectations for personal and professional development. And, for many of us, this fresh perspective can be extended to our data governance initiatives as well. While our challenges remain much the same as in 2009, this new year represents a great opportunity to reflect, adjust, prepare, and energize your data governance programs.
With this in mind, here are a few of my thoughts, trends, and projections for the new year based on talks with all kinds of organizations.
Drivers & Funding
Most data governance initiatives will continue to be driven and funded by your IT department through projects such as MDM, EDW, data quality, BI, and CRM. While companies will eventually establish data governance programs that can scale across all types of projects and business processes, most initial funding will come from traditional sources.
However, though projects are still king, the number of organizations that recognize the need for standalone data governance will continue to grow this year. Companies are beginning to understand the overall impact data governance can have on their finances, operations, and risk. This is true not only for the large, multi-national companies but also for the mid-tier businesses that are challenged with complex, fragmented technologies and operations.
Organizations that can fund data governance initially through a project but still position it as a sanctioned enterprise body for managing data assets will see the most benefit this year and beyond.
Opportunities
Many stakeholders continue to look at data governance tactically and technically, and miss out on the overall business opportunities that can help them sell, position, and secure executive support for data governance. Data governance will begin to move away from an all-IT focus, and assume its rightful position as a business solution for helping companies drive revenue, reduce and control costs, and avoid risk. Many of these opportunities will be found in areas such as;
• Sales & Marketing
• Customer care
• Order-to-cash
• Supply chain
• Risk & Compliance
• Operations
• Manufacturing
Challenges
The primary challenges for data governance proponents will stay the same, with companies becoming more creative in trying to demonstrate value and the business case for a data governance program:
• Creating business alignment (executive & business leader support)
• Awareness (creating awareness across the organization)
• Implementing effective structure (responsibility, authority, accountability)
• Deploying (taking it from paper to reality)
• Sustainability (keeping the momentum going)
The good news is that organizations are becoming more aware of these opportunities and challenges and how best to address them. As a result, the number of companies that will launch and achieve data governance success this year will exceed the growth we saw in 2009.
Happy New Year and good luck in 2010!
Humm... interesting,
Some great information about Data Governance 2010,
Thanks
Posted by: Web developer | 01/20/2010 at 09:44 AM