What is the role of data governance?

This blog has recently spent a considerable amount of time covering data governance, its relationship with big data and its impact on information quality. And while we are learning more about it all the time, we are still working to establish a true definition and the official role of those tasked with data governance. 

An article in the online publication Information Management attempts this by declaring data governance as the act of serving and protecting the organization. This makes sense to some extent. Data governance helps identify risk that can have severe consequences for the company and it also processes information in a way that best serves the business. For example, data governance can identify quality metrics to help with the sales and marketing teams.

This sounds simple, but as Michele Goetz, the article's author, points out, there's a bit more to it than that. For instance, one policy doesn't fit all when it comes to managing information. And, in many cases, data governance may only really mean to protect, because service is actually redundant.

Essentially, if there's a data governance plan in place that corrects mistakes and weeds out inappropriate information, there shouldn't be a need to spoon-feed certain individuals or departments with the information they need. Instead, a well orchestrated data governance plan will create an environment where users can extract information as needed. They will be trusted to use appropriate data because it is organized due to governance. 

"In the grand scheme of things for the enterprise, especially as a chief data officer, the responsibility is to executives," Goetz writes. "They need to trust the data. The controls and processes at an enterprise level are tailored to their needs and expectations of information. Yet, in the world of big data, empowerment of the business to outsource IT, the number of increasingly tech savvy business people, and the ability to serve creates a more faceted data strategy — in turn a multi-faceted need for data governance."

This actually puts a heavier burden of responsibility on data governance. Giving users the flexibility to extract information for individual needs can add new layers of operational efficiency, but any issues pertaining to poorly governed data could result in major consequences. Creating a custom database software system to manage information can help companies govern their data and improve the overall quality of decision making.

Why a custom database software system can help you with risk management

Data and risk management go hand-in-hand. The ability to process information and identify key components that could potentially lead to future problems for the organization is of the utmost importance.

There will always be an element of uncertainty in business decision making. This is typically related to company financials, but that’s not always the case. While it’s impossible to completely mitigate the risks associated with the unknown, companies can do themselves a big favor by collecting proper information and using it to identify whether it is a risk or not and handling it accordingly.

The question is, how do companies identify risks hidden within their information? There are a few schools of thought regarding this.

The online publication Waters Technology addresses two of them. One is data quality. Having the best, most up-to-date and accurate information will provide major assistance to an organization’s risk management efforts. This can become more challenging as information volumes rise, but having a higher quantity of data can actually give businesses more resources and a greater chance to identify and manage risk.

Data governance also plays a big role in risk management, even if two processes are independent of one another. The reason for this is that data governance impacts a number of departments within the organization and has far more uses than simply helping identify risk. Essentially, ensuring the accuracy of information will certainly help companies trying to identify risk, but it can provide a number of other advantages as well.

As this blog has discussed in the past, data governance and data quality are directly related. According to Fidelity ActionsXchange’s Deborah Culhane, who spoke with the news source, “data quality is being improved by more mature data governance processes.”

Ultimately, building a custom database software system will allow you to concentrate your efforts on data governance and improving quality, which will pay dividends in your risk management initiatives. FileMaker development can play a sizeable role by providing you with the resources you need to discover any potential risks. This system can scale and adjust to the volume of your information, which will allow you to maintain an effective risk management process, regardless of any changes that occur to your data.

Why data governance is more important than big data

Data governance will always trump big data for one simple reason: Information managers have to follow the philosophy of quality over quantity. 

The biggest challenge data managers face is that the more they collect, the bigger the risk for low quality or inaccurate information. Making decisions based on data that is simply wrong can be incredibly costly at an organization, but it can happen if you don't have a system in place to properly review your information and ensure its accuracy and relevancy. 

An ironic twist on the NSA scandal occurred when the U.S. Government was unable to extradite Edward Snowden from Hong Kong earlier this summer due to data errors. The organization with perhaps the most amount of data at its disposal did not have its information in order. As a result, documentation filed by the government lacked crucial data, which allowed Snowden to escape. 

This is a prime example of why having too much information without a proper way to manage it can be an enormous problem for an organization. Of course, this is also an extreme example, and your data management processes will likely be on a smaller scale, but the same principle applies.

You cannot concern yourself with having enough data if you don't even have the right information. Having said that, information volumes will continue to rise over the next seven years, so having the right solutions in place to help sort and organize data is crucial. Building a custom database software system can allow your organization to stay on top of data governance, even as your information grows. 

Study: Non-profits struggle with data management

The importance of proper data management is not exclusive to for-profit companies. In fact, non-profit organizations may have a greater need for data management, considering that many have a responsibility to provide assistance with social issues. Improper data management in the non-profit sector can have consequences that extend far beyond the organization.

However, many non-profits are struggling with handling their information. According to a study conducted by the Washington-based CPA and consulting firm Tate & Tryon, the main obstacle these organizations are facing is missing and inaccurate data. Perhaps most disconcerting is the fact that while the majority of organizations know what their problem is, they don't necessarily understand what's causing that problem. "Without understanding what is truly preventing your organization from fully leveraging your data, you may end up wasting time and money – such as buying new database software – fixing something that wasn't broken," the report says.

While that assertion makes sense in theory, companies shouldn't simply negate the importance of database software. The purpose of the statement is to implore users not to invest anything they don't need, but know that they will still need some way to monitor and track information. Buying a solution for the sake of having one might not be the answer, but if you are able to build a custom database software system that fits your information management needs, you can identify data issues and solve them without having to take any unnecessary action.

FileMaker development is an ideal solution because it allows you to create a system that fits specifically with your organization. You can maximize your data management efforts and alleviate any issues such as lost or inaccurate information.

Why fantasy football can teach you the value of big data management

Tonight marks the kickoff of the 2013 NFL season, as the Baltimore Ravens will begin their Super Bowl title defense against Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos. For people in Maryland and Colorado, this is certainly a big deal, but anticipation for the new season extends well beyond the two local fanbases. Tonight, millions of football fanatics around the world will sit down to watch the game with one particular interest — their fantasy teams.

For many people, the beginning of the NFL season is only important because it means the start of a new year of fantasy football. The industry itself is worth over $1 billion, according to a 2012 report from Fox Business.  Many analysts say that fantasy football has surpassed actual sports like basketball and hockey on the list of America's most popular pastimes. It seems every year fantasy football gets bigger and bigger, which is one of the primary reasons why the NFL is the most profitable sports league in North America.

So what does all of this have to do with your business? Probably more than you think. Fantasy football, much like your organization, is increasingly being driven by data.

In fact, data has blurred the lines between fantasy football and business to a degree that companies traditionally involved in business technology and data management tools are starting to produce solutions for fantasy football owners.

Recently, Intel sponsored a panel discussion about the relationship between fantasy football and business technology, and Vice President Boyd Davis used the forum as an opportunity to praise fantasy football for its educational value. 

"Big data is a huge buzzword in my industry right now, but it's hard for people to get their heads around," he said in a post-discussion interview with the San Francisco Chronicle. "Fantasy football was for us a vehicle to bring home that rather complex, rather boring topic and then translate it into something the average person could understand."

Fantasy football is supposed to be a fun, leisurely activity, but its basic concepts are just as applicable in the business realm. In both areas, you need accurate, real-time data to help you make smart decisions on the fly. You need the best analytical tools and a way to view your information in a user-friendly format. 

FileMaker development can be used to create a custom database software system that will provide your company with the resources you need for both fantasy football and business.

Growing data volumes could impact time spent managing information

How much time does your organization spend managing data? How much of that time is unnecessarily wasted? Without the proper information management software in place, the answer to the latter could be shockingly high. 

According to the McKinsey Global Institute, data volumes are growing at a rate of 40 percent per year. Between 2009 and 2020, the amount of information at the average company will increase 4,400 percent. This means, standard practices regarding the processing, evaluation and storage of information will no longer be viable unless businesses have the tools to accommodate growth. While a lack of proper tools may sound like a problem typically experienced by smaller companies, large enterprise-level organizations aren't exactly off the hook. In fact, their challenges could be even greater, because Forrester Research suggests these companies experience information growth at a rate of 76 percent each year.

The growth of information has made it even more difficult to manage it, which is why best practices must be administered at all times. If they are not, companies can spend an excessive amount of time just trying to find their data. According to Google's Enterprise Search Manager Binesh Lad, 25 percent of a data manager's time is spent just trying to find information. As data grows, that number will increase. In fact, employees could spend as much as 50 percent of their time looking for information if it's stored in five more more silos. 

Worst of all, Lad says that 38 percent of the time, workers don't even find the information they are looking for. Imagine spending all that time trying to find the data you need, only to come up empty. This inefficient use of time can be extremely detrimental to your company's profits, and if you are unable to make changes to your data management processes, you could ultimately wind up buried in a sea of your own information. 

That's why having the right processing solution is so crucial. Building a custom database software system designed to track data and expand as volumes grow will not only eliminate wasted time immediately, it can set your organization up for long-term viability. FileMaker development can allow businesses to create a flexible and scalable system that will effectively help manage information, regardless of how big it gets. 

Mobility gives small businesses an edge

Small businesses have an advantage over their larger counterparts for one reason — it is far easier to adopt innovative technologies in the former's environment, which gives it much greater operational flexibility.

Consider a large corporation with hundreds, if not thousands of workers. They show up to the office and all follow a fairly standard pattern. Investing in new technologies or implementing new strategies requires countless meetings between executives. One employee could mention a new idea to his or her boss, who in turn mentions it to their superior, who then goes up the ladder to the person in charge of them, and so on and so forth. 

At small companies, there is much more flexibility. Lower level employees have more of a say. The smaller the company, the more this is true. Self proprietors can essentially do what they want as long as their practices stay within the confines of their industry's regulatory measures. Meaning, they can work on the go and use their own personal devices — whether that's a smartphone, tablet, laptop or any other portable machine — to get the job done. They may lack the resources of traditional large companies, but if they utilize their resources to the best of their ability, they will put themselves in position to succeed in their industry. 

According to a study conducted by BIA/Kelsey, mobile payments and social media are two areas in which small businesses can excel. Owners can create personal interactions with customers via social channels on their devices. They can use their smartphones and tablets to process payments in a number of different ways, which will likely be a conducted much faster than at a larger company. 

"Mobile continues to make impressive inroads into the SMB market, as both a marketing vehicle and as an element of the business infrastructure," Steve Marshall, director of research at BIA/Kelsey, said in a statement. "A closer look at the data shows adoption of mobile and social varies across SMB industry sectors. The LCM data reveals professional and home and trade services are embracing mobile in a big way, with service providers essentially becoming walking POS terminals."

While the flexibility to use mobile devices for a number of operations is certainly a benefit for small businesses, they must be able to properly manage all the data they obtain via their mobile activity. Building a custom database software system can help small businesses maintain their flexibility without compromising the integrity of their information.

Technological innovation is just getting started—is your company ready?

Given the abundance of new technologies that have proliferated corporate environments in recent years, one would think we have reached  the peak of IT innovation. Think again.

While advancements have been made in cloud computing, mobility, data management and many other key areas of business in the last five years or so, we have not reached the end of technological evolution. In fact, we could just be getting started.

An article in the Harvard Business Review suggests we have just hit the beginning of the next digital wave, meaning new innovative technologies are right around the corner and more areas of our life will be digitized. This makes sense when you consider arguably the biggest change in technology coming down the pipeline: the internet of things.

This essentially suggests everything we use in our daily lives will be connected to an online network. We’ll be able to use our coffee makers to share with Facebook every time we make a fresh pot and our vacuum cleaners will tell us the last time we used them, giving us an idea of when we should vacuum again. These examples are obviously somewhat extreme and will be used in the home, but the concept is very real and will have a major impact on businesses and the data they process.

Intel CIO Kim Stevenson spoke with the news source about the overall trend of new technologies. She indicated that recent innovations have really only laid the groundwork for this tsunami of digital devices, and warned businesses to prepare for the onslaught.

“[IT functions have] gone through ERP, they’ve gone through BYOD and they’ve gone through cloud, and they think they’ve done it all,” Stevenson said. “But the reality is, we’re only at the very, very beginning of this next generation of computing, and I think that…industry leaders will be the ones that transform first. I don’t care what industry you’re talking about.”

Perhaps the biggest challenge companies will face due to digital innovation is a major spike in data. Not only will information be more prevalent, companies will have to be more efficient when managing it if they want to maintain long-term viability in their industry. Capitalizing on innovation is what will allow businesses to succeed during this time. Building a custom database software system can provide organizations with the resources they need to effectively manage their information.

Data grows, information management professionals shrinking

The rise of big data has greatly outpaced professional training, meaning there aren’t enough individuals in the world who can successfully manage an organization’s big data efforts. That’s according to an article in the Chicago Tribune.

The news source detailed a number of companies struggling to keep up with new data management needs because they lack proper personnel. In fact, an even more disconcerting idea is the data analysis profession is trending the wrong way.

Projections made by the global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company indicate that the U.S. could face a shortfall of roughly 35 percent of people with advanced training in statistics and other fields that would ultimately be used to help businesses with data management needs. So, not only is data growing at a tremendous rate and new needs are being developed every day, the number of people actually interested in managing information is dwindling.

There are a number of educational efforts being made to reverse this trend and fix this problem, which has both immediate and long-term ramifications. As a result, there may be a day when professionals do catch up with big data and companies are able to successfully fill positions with skilled, educated and qualified individuals who understand all important details pertaining to information management. However, for this to happen, the growth of information volumes and, more importantly, changes in the way data is processed, have to slow down. Neither appear to be happening any time soon.

Linda Burtch is the founder of Burtch Works, an Evanston, Illinois-based executive recruitment firm. She has spent a significant amount of time researching the skills and knowledge of professionals and has determined there simply isn’t enough help out there.

“There aren’t enough of them. Period. End of story,” she told the Tribune. “The demand for quantitative professionals has grown so across industries that there aren’t enough kids coming out of school studying math and statistics.”

That’s why businesses have to innovate and come up with ways to get the most of their information management procedures. If they can’t find the right professionals to operate big data initiatives, their staffs will undoubtedly become limited. The problem here is information growth isn’t slowing down. Meaning, as time goes on, companies will be less equipped to handle any challenges related to big data unless they implement new strategies.

Data processing efficiency is key, particularly if companies lack adequate personnel to manage it. If companies can’t manually collect, store and analyze data, they have to rely on machines to share the load. Building a custom database software system will allow companies to efficiently manage information with limited staff because these systems can streamline a number of processes that may have traditionally required human workers.

Building this solution with FileMaker development offers a number of advantages, but perhaps the most important is that FileMaker-based systems can scale up and down and have the flexibility to adapt with a changing environment. Therefore, once companies are able to hire new workers to manage their data, their systems can be adjusted accordingly.

Why decision makers need to review data before they act

The purpose of collecting and managing data is to provide decision makers with the resources they need to make the right call for their organization. If executives are using data to confirm or support their decisions, they are thinking backwards and their organizations won't be as successful.

It's a competitive business market out there and decision makers have to think quickly, but they also have to be smart about their decisions. Let's say a marketing executive wanted to roll out a new strategy and it wasn't entirely successful. At this point he or she checks the data to confirm if it should have worked in the first place, only to discover insights that would have been able to prevent them from making a marketing mistake.

This scenario sounds improbable. Why would someone wait until after they made a decision to check if their data supported it? Unfortunately, it's more common than you might think.

An article in Investment News recently asked if data management needs more oversight. This question is supported by Erik Brynjolfsson, Director of the MIT Center for Digital Business and Professor of Information Technology, who listed several problems companies have when it comes to managing information. One of the issues is that too many decisions are made before analyzing data.

"A serious pitfall is when a manager comes to a decision using gut instinct, and then they go and tell the IT department to gather some data to support that decision," Brynjolfsson said. "It ought to be integrated right from the start."

Even though decisions have to be made quickly, instead of making them before checking information, data management systems should be designed to support quick decision making. Building a custom database software system will provide companies with the tools needed to effectively process and analyze data in real time. This will improve decision making speed while alleviating the risk of poor choices.