How Can The Adoption of a Data Platform Simplify Data Governance For An Organization?

Summary: Data Governance is a strategic approach to managing and protecting enterprise data. It involves defining data ownership, setting data standards, and implementing policies to ensure data accuracy, consistency, and security.

Introduction

As the world slowly drifts towards data-driven decision-making, the relevance of quality data sets becomes even more significant. While most of this data is stored in a repository or on a cloud-based platform, the system’s vulnerability cannot be undermined. 

Falling into the wrong hands can lead to the illicit use of this data. Hence, adopting a Data Platform that assures complete data security and governance for an organisation becomes paramount. In this blog, we are going to discuss more on What is Data Platform & Data Governance.

Key Highlights

As our dependency on data increases, so does the need to have defined governance policies also rises. As per the State of Governance and Empowerment report (2021), the conventional reason to implement Data Governance are:

Analytics (35%)

Regulatory compliance (34%)

Better decision-making (27%)

However, recent research has highlighted the following additional factors that increase the reliance on Data Governance

Improved data security (48%)

Data quality (45%)

What is Data Governance and Data Platform?

With the exponential growth of data and increasing complexities of the ecosystem, organisations face the challenge of ensuring data security and compliance with regulations. Here comes the role of Data Governance. 

It provides a structured framework for managing the data. Seated Data Governance platforms provide essential tools to help the organisation implement and enforce Data Governance policies.

Data Governance

The strategic management of data involves different processes and technologies to ensure that the data is reliable and is accessed responsibly. Simply put, Data Governance is the collection of different policies, standards and regulations that ensures effective use of the available data, thus enabling the organisation to achieve its goals. 

It also incorporates the formulation of different processes and strategies that ensure the quality and security of data. In addition, it also defines the framework wherein it is decided what action needs to be taken on certain data.  

Hence the significance of a well-defined governance strategy becomes fundamental for any organisation. And so, a company dealing in Big Data Analysis needs to follow stringent Data Governance policies.

For example, if you are running a medical facility, then your Data Governance strategy includes the privacy of the patient’s health care data.

The key objective of Data Governance is to provide the foundation for data-driven decision-making. Thus reducing the risk and misuse of data.

Relying on a credible Data Governance platform is paramount to seamlessly implementing Data Governance policies. These platforms are centralised and designed to manage data practices, facilitate collaboration among different stakeholders, and automate the Data Governance workflow.

Data Governance Framework

A robust Data Governance Framework is the cornerstone of effective data management. It provides a structured approach to ensuring data quality, security, and accessibility across an organisation.

By establishing clear policies, roles, and responsibilities, organisations can harness the power of their data to drive informed decision-making, improve operational efficiency, and mitigate risks. A typical Data Governance platform should include the following:

Data Standards

A documented record of business glossaries, their taxonomies, and dictionaries must be created. It clears any ambiguities that may otherwise crop up. It enables the stakeholders to assess the data architecture. Additionally, the team can innovate and automate its processes.

Data Processes and Organisational Structure

Data Governance access controls enable the end-users to see how data processing works inside an organisation. It can include data refresh cadences, PII limitations, regulatory data regulations, or even data access.

Tools and Technologies

It includes tools like metadata management systems that support data processes and standards. It ensures the safe storage of data. Moreover, it can also be merged with the self-service Data Analytics Tools, thus, allowing Analysts to query and analyse various data sets for reporting and innovation initiatives.

Benefits of Data-Driven Governance

Data-driven governance leverages data analytics to optimise decision-making and improve governance processes. By analysing data patterns and trends, organisations can identify areas for improvement, measure performance, and make data-informed decisions to enhance governance effectiveness.

Accurate Decision-making

With the implementation of Data Governance, organisations can ensure better decision-making. It is applicable in the case of the process as well as the decisions. When the data is of better quality it gives accurate insights. Hence the decisions based on these data sets will ensure accuracy and precision.

Enhances Transparency

Transparency while documenting data is important. It allows the organisations to understand when the data was collected and when it was added to the system and other information. This establishes data accountability. Thus reducing the risk of misuse of data.

Profitable Outcomes

Another benefit of Data Governance is that it ensures effective decision-making and productivity. For example, a well-run company that manufactures spare parts ensures that its production line machinery undergoes timely inspections, maintenance, repair and upgrade as required. The same applies to data.

Improved Data Integration and Collaboration

Since Data Governance establishes data standards and definitions, it promotes data sharing and exchange among business units. It also fosters collaboration amongst different stakeholders, thus facilitating communication and data sharing. All these eventually work together to ensure enhanced decision-making and improved performance.

Increased Data Value and Monetization Opportunities

In addition to the benefits mentioned above, Data Governance also helps maximise the value of the data sets by ensuring accuracy, reliability and consistency. Reliability and high-quality data help derive accurate insights to uncover new business opportunities.

Components of a Data Governance Framework

A robust Data Governance framework is essential for managing data effectively, ensuring its quality, security, and compliance. Here are the key components:

Data Governance Organization

This includes the roles, responsibilities, and structure of the Data Governance team, such as the Data Governance Council, Data Stewards, and Data Owners.

Data Policies and Standards

These define the rules, guidelines, and standards for data management, including data quality, security, privacy, and retention.

Data Quality Management

This focuses on ensuring data accuracy, completeness, consistency, and timeliness through processes like data profiling, cleansing, and validation.

Data Security and Privacy

This involves protecting data from unauthorised access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction.

Data Metadata Management

This includes creating, managing, and utilising metadata to describe data characteristics, lineage, and quality.

Data Lifecycle Management

This covers the entire lifecycle of data, from creation to retirement, including data retention, archival, and deletion.

What is a Data Platform, and How is it Useful for Enterprise Management?

A data platform is essentially a centralised repository and processing hub for an organisation’s entire data ecosystem. It’s a comprehensive solution that handles the entire data lifecycle, from ingestion and storage to processing, analysis, and visualisation.

Think of it as a robust foundation that supports all data-related activities within an enterprise. It integrates various tools and technologies to ensure data is accessible, reliable, and secure for everyone who needs it.

Key Components of a Data Platform

• Data Ingestion: Collecting data from diverse sources (databases, applications, IoT devices, etc.).
• Data Storage: Storing data in various formats (structured, unstructured, semi-structured) in data lakes or warehouses.
• Data Processing: Transforming and cleaning data to make it suitable for analysis.
• Data Analysis: Applying advanced analytics and machine learning techniques to extract insights.
• Data Visualization: Presenting data in a visually appealing and understandable format.
• Data Governance: Ensuring data quality, security, and compliance.

How Data Platforms Benefit Enterprise Management

Data platforms are transforming the way enterprises operate. By centralising data management and processing, these platforms offer a solid foundation for organisations to extract valuable insights. Let’s delve into how data platforms empower businesses to make data-driven decisions, enhance operational efficiency, and gain a competitive edge.

Integration and Consolidation

These platforms help in organising and integrating data from different sources. This enables organisations to have comprehensive data, thus facilitating data-driven decision-making and reducing data silos.

Processing and Analytics

These platforms are laced with technologies that assist in processing and analysing large volumes of data in real time. Thus, allowing the organisations to gauge the patterns and unfold hidden opportunities.

Governance and Security

Security of data is paramount. Data Platforms are loaded with security features that ensure data management, compliance and security. With the help of Data Governance tools, organisations can create Data Governance policy and processes, ensure a higher quality of data, and security features include encryption of data and data masking.  

Scalability and Flexibility

From the above discussions, we can conclude that Data Platforms play a significant role in managing volumes of data. Hence, every organisation should check its scalability and flexibility before choosing a Data Platform. Cloud-based platforms have better flexibility, allowing organisations to scale up or down their data processing requirements.

Collaboration and Sharing

Data Platforms facilitate data collaboration and sharing among different stakeholders within an organisation. It enables data sharing, lineage tracking, and cataloguing, making it easier for business users, Data Scientists, and Analysts to collaborate, share insights, and derive value from data.

Improved Operational Efficiency

Data Platforms streamline data management processes and automate data ingestion, processing, and analytics. Thus, reducing manual effort and improving operational efficiency. This allows organisations to optimise their data workflows, reduce data processing time, and make faster and more informed decisions.

Wrapping it up !!!

Data Platforms are essential for modern enterprise management as they provide a comprehensive and integrated approach to managing data effectively. From data integration and consolidation to data processing and analytics, Data Governance offers all the features that make it integral for any organisation.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Can the Adoption Of a Data Platform Simplify Data Governance For An Organization?

 The primary reason for organisations to switch to Data Platforms is to ensure a streamlined Data Governance and management process. 

These platforms are equipped with robust security frameworks and access control features, which makes it easier for the user to use the information without breaching the security frameworks. Organisations can use the Data Platform to have centralised ownership that maintains data security.

How Can Data Platforms Help Improve Data Governance?

Data Platforms play a significant role in enhancing the overall management of data, its integrity and scalability. These platforms are designed to provide a secure framework to access the data while leveraging the flexibility that makes the data secure and safe.

How Do Data Platforms Help Businesses with Their Data Governance Needs?

Data Platforms provide a safe and secure framework to store and manage the data while allowing easy access to the same to authorised authorities.