Data or Information Governance?
Dr. Bjorn Tuft
A number of companies have been addressing data governance over the past few years using a variety of different data governance models that have been developed. However, data governance implementations tend to be narrow in scope – i.e., confined to business units – and do not adequately addresses the full enterprise requirement of information governance. Clients have asked Experton Group to discuss the concepts of information governance and the information supply chain and how to get started.
Data governance is a methodology for controlling the process of managing structured enterprise data. Effective data governance should ensure the availability, integrity, and quality of a company's data. For the majority of companies, data are the raw facts within a business silo without the application of the business context.
Information governance is a methodology for controlling the process of managing information throughout the enterprise. Information consists of structured data and unstructured content combined with business context from one or more business silos. Information can have different meanings beyond the scope of the business unit that captured or created the data. Properties of information with trusted content are authenticity, authority, integrity, reliability, and usability.
While many think data and information quality issues are an IT problem, they are really business problems and cost companies money, time, and resources. According to a study of 400 business executives, 80% of the business leaders view information as a source of competitive advantage. Yet 50 percent of them do not have access to needed information across the organization so that they can make intelligent decisions.
The Bottom Line: Experton Group believes information governance must become embedded into the standard business processes of all organizations if executives expect to be able to effectively integrate all parts of the organization into a cohesive whole. Information governance will facilitate information transparency and enable executives to make better informed business decisions when responding to changing business conditions and systemic risks. IT executives should work with corporate and line of business executives to put a strategy in place for the deployment and implementation of data governance, and then information governance, processes throughout the organization.