Leaders in every industry are aware of the important role that data plays in modern organizations. Data allows organizations to better understand their customers, their competitors, and most importantly, the organization itself. The effective use of data requires a well-defined and executed data governance program. Data governance is complex, and few organizations do it well. One tool that greatly simplifies and improves the process is BPM software.
What is data governance?
Data governance is essentially a system for defining how data is collected and processed within an organization. It is becoming an increasingly important topic with the need for governance surrounding the citizen developer movement, while answering questions such as:
- Who has access to data?
- Who owns data?
- What security measures are used to protect privacy and data?
- What data sources can be used?
An effective data governance program ensures that data is consistent, reliable, and secure. The program typically includes a governance team and group of data stewards. These teams work together to define, develop, implement, and enforce data procedures within an organization.Data governance is often confused with the term data management. Data governance, however, is just one aspect of the larger discipline of data management. It is a function that supports an organization’s overall data management strategy, whichGartner defines as “the practices, architectural techniques, and tools for achieving consistent access to and delivery of data across the spectrum of data subject areas and data structure types in the enterprise, to meet the data consumption requirements of all applications and business processes.”
