Given the immense volume of data readily available to businesses, restraint and discipline are required to maintain a sensible and lawful approach to data capture and storage. And that’s where data governance comes in, providing an effective means of balancing risk with reward when it comes to gathering, storing, and utilising data.
What do we mean by data governance? All will be revealed as part of our in-depth guide, which touches on the definition, benefits, and key considerations of this powerful and essential part of business strategy.
What is Data Governance?
Data governance refers to the processes, policies, and standards a company uses to manage its data. It ensures that digital assets are secure and easy to manage, particularly within multi-site companies that deal with ‘big data’.
The role of data governance is to define how data is used, accessed, and stored across an organisation. Done well and it can improve accountability and responsibility, ensuring that all personnel understand how to interact with and approach data management.
It’s a common misconception that data governance refers only to security, but this isn’t the case. Instead, its policies provide guidance on how data should be used and handled across an organisation, with a view to maintaining security and compliance, as well as ease of access and usability.
Historically, formalised data governance policies were used only by large corporations, whose vast data stores necessitated a strategic approach to safe data management. Now, however, businesses of all sizes are encouraged to consider data governance, with digital transformation and stringent compliance legislation (e.g., GDPR) demanding a more comprehensive approach to data management and control.
Benefits of Data Governance
One thing to note on data governance is that it isn’t simply a means of protecting data and adhering to compliance regulations. On the contrary, a sound governance strategy can bring a wealth of benefits to your organisation – from improved data quality to consistent data accuracy across all business functions.
Here, we take a closer look at the different benefits that data governance can bring to your business.
Improved Data Management
Digital transformation means that businesses of all sizes accrue data at an astounding rate from multiple channels, often unwittingly. Though good for seizing opportunities, this level of automation can make effective data management challenging and put businesses at risk of breaching compliance regulation.
Data governance policies reassert the human element of data capture, putting best-practice processes in place to ensure safe and lawful data management. Not only that, but it ensures that the data you do gather is accurate, relevant, and usable, bringing added value to defined and secure data sets.
Quality Data and Ease of Access
Following on from our last point, data governance makes maintaining the quality, accuracy, and completeness of data a whole lot simpler. With formal data-gathering processes in place, it becomes much easier to silo, manage and segment incoming and existing data – ensuring greater accuracy and consistency when utilising digital assets.
In a similar vein, a formalised data governance strategy is ideal for teams and business functions that rely on real-time data insights to drive sales and leads. With consistent data use processes in place, governance ensures that the right people have the right data at the right time, making it simpler to act on emerging opportunities.
Data governance empowers your teams to treat data with the respect it’s owed, which simplifies ongoing compliance. From a data compliance perspective, the stakes have never been higher, with the threat of sizeable fines for data breaches encouraging businesses to take a tough line on safe data management and control.
Meeting the regulatory demands of data security schemes such as GDPR can be challenging, particularly for smaller businesses that lack internal legal and technical resources. Devising a data governance strategy may not sound like a priority, but with such measures in place, maintaining data compliance becomes much simpler throughout day-to-day operations.
Data Governance and the Cloud – Things to Note
As a business, stepping up to using ERP software as a business management platform often means moving some or all your data storage and digital assets to the cloud. Cloud integration brings major benefits from an operational standpoint, but how might it impact your data governance strategy?
Over the past decade, the cloud has emerged as an essential technological partner for business, providing an affordable, convenient, and powerful means of scaling operations in line with business growth. But utilising the cloud does mean handing some degree of control and ownership to a third party, which can set alarm bells ringing from a data governance standpoint.
As touched on earlier, one of the biggest problems businesses face in managing data effectively is the sheer volume of data that can be procured by automated systems. And the cloud contributes to this simplicity, making it easier than ever for businesses to accrue and store masses of data – some of which they may have little use for.
For this reason, a formal data governance strategy can be extremely useful for businesses adopting cloud technology, maintaining a good degree of control over data capture and effective management. Your ICT or managed services provider should be well versed to guide you here. A strategic approach to data governance is essential from the moment you migrate assets to the cloud, providing the assurance that the data is secure and easy to access.
How Technology Can Aid Data Governance
While data governance centres on the human approach to data management, security, and storage – technology plays a role in supporting such a strategy during day-to-day operations.
Take, for example, a cloud-enabled ERP system. Such platforms offer a range of features and functions specifically designed to make it easier to control, understand, and benefit from your data sets.
Leveraging such tools and applications forms a central part of your data governance strategy, empowering teams to take control of data while ensuring it’s safe, secure, accurate, and complete.
Ensuring data governance protocols and policies form part of your ERP system offers a wealth of benefits, including:
- Data benchmarking and segmentation – Use the in-depth filtering functionality in your ERP system to segment data by type, so you can store and manage the asset accordingly.
- Improved data quality – ERP systems enable you to enforce data cleansing, enrichment, and validation rules in your business so you can be sure your data sets are relevant, complete and of the highest quality.
- Enhanced data control – Numerous ERP systems will enable you to simplify data management, giving you the option to actively review and monitor data sets.
- Better data accessibility – Data documenting tools allow you to catalogue sets according to relevance, date, and type, making it easier for internal teams to access and utilise new and legacy data sets.
- Improved accountability – Accountability is important when handling sensitive data and assets, so using an application like an ERP system that makes data easier to track and trace is ideal for maintaining compliance and security.
We hope this technology-focused guide to data governance provides some clarity on how to effectively manage and control data within your organisation. At Intact, we provide future-ready business management software and ERP solutions designed to get your business operating at its best. For more information or to learn more about our software and services, visit the homepage or contact us today.
Kwa kuzingatia kiasi kikubwa cha data inayopatikana kwa urahisi kwa biashara, udhibiti na nidhamu zinahitajika kudumisha mbinu ya busara na ya kisheria ya kukamata na kuhifadhi data. Na hapo ndipo utawala wa data unapoingia, ukitoa njia bora ya kusawazisha hatari na thawabu linapokuja kukusanya, kuhifadhi, na kutumia data. Tunamaanisha nini kwa usimamizi wa data? Yote yatagunduliwa kama sehemu ya mwongozo wetu wa kina, ambao unagusa ufafanuzi, faida, na kuzingatia muhimu kwa sehemu hii yenye nguvu na muhimu ya mkakati wa biashara. Utawala wa Takwimu ni nini? Utawala wa data unahusu michakato, sera, na viwango ambavyo kampuni hutumia kusimamia data zake. Inahakikisha kwamba mali digital ni salama na rahisi kusimamia, hasa ndani ya makampuni ya maeneo mengi ambayo kushughulika na "data kubwa". Jukumu la utawala wa data ni kufafanua jinsi data ni kutumika, kupatikana, na kuhifadhiwa katika shirika. Kufanya vizuri na inaweza kuboresha uwajibikaji na uwajibikaji, kuhakikisha kwamba wafanyakazi wote kuelewa jinsi ya kuingiliana na mbinu ya usimamizi wa data. Ni dhana potofu ya kawaida kwamba utawala wa data inahusu usalama tu, lakini hii si kesi. Badala yake, sera zake hutoa mwongozo juu ya jinsi data inapaswa kutumika na kushughulikiwa katika shirika, kwa lengo la kudumisha usalama na kufuata, pamoja na urahisi wa upatikanaji na usability. Kihistoria, sera rasmi za usimamizi wa data zilitumiwa tu na mashirika makubwa, ambayo maduka makubwa ya data yalihitaji mbinu ya kimkakati ya usimamizi salama wa data. Sasa, hata hivyo, biashara za ukubwa wote zinahimizwa kuzingatia usimamizi wa data, na mabadiliko ya dijiti na sheria kali za kufuata (kwa mfano, GDPR) zinahitaji mbinu ya kina zaidi ya usimamizi na udhibiti wa data. Faida za Utawala wa Takwimu Jambo moja la kuzingatia juu ya utawala wa data ni kwamba si njia tu ya kulinda data na kufuata kanuni za kufuata. Kinyume chake, mkakati mzuri wa utawala unaweza kuleta faida nyingi kwa shirika lako - kutoka kwa ubora wa data ulioboreshwa hadi usahihi wa data thabiti katika kazi zote za biashara. Hapa, tutaangalia kwa karibu faida tofauti ambazo usimamizi wa data unaweza kuleta kwa biashara yako. Utaratibu wa Usimamizi wa Takwimu: Mabadiliko ya dijiti yanamaanisha kuwa biashara za ukubwa wowote hukusanya data kwa kiwango cha kushangaza kutoka kwa njia nyingi, mara nyingi bila kujua. Ingawa ni nzuri kwa ajili ya kukamata fursa, kiwango hiki cha automatisering inaweza kufanya ufanisi usimamizi wa data changamoto na kuweka biashara katika hatari ya kuvunja kanuni ya kufuata. Sera za usimamizi wa data zinathibitisha tena kipengele cha binadamu cha kukusanya data, kuweka michakato bora ya mazoezi mahali ili kuhakikisha usimamizi salama na wa kisheria wa data. Na sio hivyo tu, lakini pia inahakikisha kwamba data unayokusanya ni sahihi, muhimu, na inayoweza kutumika, ikileta thamani iliyoongezwa kwa seti za data zilizofafanuliwa na salama. Kufuatia kutoka kwa hatua yetu ya mwisho, utawala wa data hufanya kudumisha ubora, usahihi, na ukamilifu wa data rahisi sana. Pamoja na taratibu rasmi za kukusanya data mahali, inakuwa rahisi sana kuunganisha, kusimamia na kugawanya data zinazokuja na zilizopo - kuhakikisha usahihi mkubwa na uthabiti wakati wa kutumia mali za dijiti. Kwa njia hiyo hiyo, mkakati rasmi wa usimamizi wa data ni bora kwa timu na kazi za biashara ambazo hutegemea ufahamu wa data ya wakati halisi ili kuendesha mauzo na kuongoza. Kwa mchakato thabiti wa matumizi ya data, utawala unahakikisha kuwa watu sahihi wana data sahihi kwa wakati sahihi, na kuifanya iwe rahisi kuchukua hatua juu ya fursa zinazojitokeza. Utawala wa data unawezesha timu zako kutibu data kwa heshima inayostahili, ambayo inawezesha kufuata kwa kuendelea. Kutoka kwa mtazamo wa kufuata data, mizigo haijawahi kuwa kubwa zaidi, na tishio la faini kubwa kwa ukiukaji wa data kuwahimiza wafanyabiashara kuchukua mstari mgumu juu ya usimamizi salama wa data na udhibiti. Kutimiza mahitaji ya kisheria ya mipango ya usalama wa data kama vile GDPR inaweza kuwa changamoto, haswa kwa biashara ndogo ambazo hazina rasilimali za kisheria na kiufundi za ndani. Kuunda mkakati wa usimamizi wa data inaweza kuonekana kama kipaumbele, lakini kwa hatua kama hizo, kudumisha kufuata data inakuwa rahisi zaidi katika shughuli za kila siku. Data Governance na Cloud: Mambo ya kuzingatia Kama biashara, kuongeza juu ya kutumia ERP programu kama jukwaa la usimamizi wa biashara mara nyingi inamaanisha kuhamisha baadhi au wote wa kuhifadhi data yako na mali digital kwa wingu. Cloud kuunganisha huleta faida kubwa kutoka mtazamo wa uendeshaji, lakini jinsi gani inaweza kuathiri mkakati wako wa utawala wa data? Katika muongo uliopita, wingu limetokea kama mshirika muhimu wa kiteknolojia kwa biashara, ikitoa njia ya bei nafuu, rahisi na yenye nguvu ya kupanua shughuli kulingana na ukuaji wa biashara. Lakini kutumia wingu inamaanisha kutoa kiwango fulani cha udhibiti na umiliki kwa mtu wa tatu, ambayo inaweza kuweka kengele za kengele kutoka kwa mtazamo wa usimamizi wa data. Kama ilivyoelezwa hapo awali, moja ya matatizo makubwa biashara inakabiliwa katika kusimamia data kwa ufanisi ni wingi wa data ambayo inaweza kupatikana na mifumo ya automatiska. Na wingu linachangia unyenyekevu huu, ikifanya iwe rahisi zaidi kuliko hapo awali kwa biashara kukusanya na kuhifadhi wingi wa data - ambayo baadhi yao wanaweza kuwa na matumizi kidogo. Kwa sababu hii, mkakati rasmi wa usimamizi wa data unaweza kuwa muhimu sana kwa biashara zinazopitisha teknolojia ya wingu, kudumisha kiwango kizuri cha udhibiti juu ya kukamata data na usimamizi mzuri. Mtoa huduma wako wa huduma za IT au huduma za kusimamiwa lazima awe na ujuzi wa kutosha kukuongoza hapa. Mkakati wa usimamizi wa data ni muhimu tangu wakati wa kuhamisha mali kwenye wingu, kutoa uhakika kwamba data ni salama na rahisi kupata. Jinsi Teknolojia Inavyoweza Kusaidia Utawala wa Takwimu Wakati utawala wa data unazingatia mbinu ya binadamu kwa usimamizi wa data, usalama, na uhifadhi - teknolojia ina jukumu katika kusaidia mkakati kama huo wakati wa shughuli za kila siku. Kwa mfano, mfumo wa ERP wa wingu. Jukwaa hili lina uwezo wa kuunda na kuunda kazi ambazo zinasaidia kuwezesha uendeshaji, uelewa na utumiaji wa seti yako ya data. Kutumia zana na maombi kama hayo ni sehemu muhimu ya mkakati wako wa usimamizi wa data, kuwezesha timu kuchukua udhibiti wa data wakati wa kuhakikisha ni salama, salama, sahihi, na kamili. Kuimarisha mifumo ya usimamizi wa data na sera ni sehemu ya mfumo wako wa ERP, na hutoa faida nyingi, ikiwa ni pamoja na: - Data benchmarking na segmentation - Tumia kazi ya kuchuja kina katika mfumo wako wa ERP kugawanya data kwa aina, hivyo unaweza kuhifadhi na kusimamia mali ipasavyo. - Uboreshaji wa ubora wa data - Mifumo ya ERP inakuwezesha kutekeleza sheria za kusafisha data, utajiri, na uthibitisho katika biashara yako ili uwe na uhakika kwamba seti zako za data ni muhimu, kamili na ya ubora wa juu. - Kuboreshwa udhibiti wa data <unk> Mifumo mingi ERP itawawezesha kurahisisha usimamizi wa data, kukupa chaguo kwa bidii kukagua na kufuatilia seti za data. - Upatikanaji bora wa data <unk> Vifaa vya kumbukumbu ya data vinakuruhusu kuorodhesha seti kulingana na umuhimu, tarehe, na aina, na kuifanya iwe rahisi kwa timu za ndani kupata na kutumia seti mpya na za zamani za data. Uwajibikaji ni muhimu wakati wa kushughulikia data nyeti na mali, kwa hivyo kutumia programu kama mfumo wa ERP ambayo hufanya data iwe rahisi kufuatilia na kufuatilia ni bora kwa kudumisha kufuata na usalama. Tunatumaini kwamba mwongozo huu wa teknolojia ya usimamizi wa data hutoa uwazi juu ya jinsi ya kusimamia na kudhibiti data ndani ya shirika lako. InText ni kampuni ya teknolojia ya teknolojia ya teknolojia ya teknolojia ya teknolojia ya teknolojia ya teknolojia ya teknolojia ya teknolojia ya teknolojia ya teknolojia ya teknolojia ya teknolojia ya teknolojia ya teknolojia ya teknolojia ya teknolojia ya teknolojia ya teknolojia ya teknolojia ya teknolojia ya teknolojia ya teknolojia ya teknolojia ya teknolojia ya teknolojia. Kwa habari zaidi au kujifunza zaidi kuhusu programu yetu na huduma, tembelea ukurasa wa nyumbani au wasiliana nasi leo.