During your time in business, you’ve probably heard the term ‘data governance’, and you may be wondering how exactly this affects your business and whether it’s something important you need to think about. Of course, there’s no denying that data is big business these days and one of the most essential aspects of the business world. It can’t be understated, which should already begin to hint that the governance of your data is also something you’re going to want to think about.
What is Data Governance?
If you already know, feel free to skip ahead, but just so we’re all on the same page, data governance is the process of sifting through the data that your business has to make sure it’s accurate, correct, trustworthy, and legitimate, and other adjectives along these lines.
Whether your business has data coming in from customers, clients, and other externals sources, or you’re creating your own data internally, if you’re using untrustworthy information, you’re not going to be making decisions and implementing processes to your business that are going to have the best results.
As a really quick example, if you take a load of demographic data off your social media pages to try and figure out who your target market really is so, you can market to them more effectively, but this information is coming from an illegitimate source, taking action from this data is only going to set you back in the long term.
Why Should You Care?
So, why should you care about data governance? Well, the majority of businesses will see three main benefits of paying it attention. These are; saving money, giving yourself the opportunity to achieve the best results, and the fact you won’t be risking the success of your business. Let’s explore them now.
Saving Money
Since you’ll be governing your data and only using data that will help your business, data you can trust, and data that are reliable, you’ll be making your business far more efficient and will, therefore, save you a lot of money. For example, if you have multiple accounts for the same client, you’ll be doing double the work for no reason.
If you have errors in your business data, you will need to correct them and find the correct information, this will take time to correct, and as we all know, time is money.
The Best Results & Clarity
The chances are your business will use data to see exactly where you are, how successful you are, and what you need to be doing to not only keep going, but to grow, expand, and be the best you can be. Consider what kind of analytical data you currently watch and monitor, and how important it is to ensure this data is correct.
You Risk Your Business
Simply put, if there’s an error in the data that your business uses, what are the risks of something going wrong, and what kind of risks does this pose to your business? In some areas, the data might not mean to much, but anything from stock counts and inventory checks, income, and especially government and legal regulation documentation, such as health and safety, is very important to track to ensure it’s accurate.
Summary
All in all, it’s easy to see that data governance is something that all businesses should be thinking about. Try to implement practices into your business that checks data and makes sure it’s correct while it’s being processed. It can make a world of difference and may even make or break your business.
