With the speed of change, when sec­onds and min­utes can alter an out­come or oppor­tu­ni­ty, data has become increas­ing­ly valu­able to an orga­ni­za­tion. So, it stands to rea­son that data gov­er­nance should be on top of all C‑suite lead­ers’ minds, no mat­ter their enterprise. 

At the core, every orga­ni­za­tion and its busi­ness users ben­e­fit from insights that can help them make informed deci­sions. But for data to be use­ful, it needs to be accu­rate, mean­ing­ful, time­ly, and most of all, acces­si­ble. Imple­ment­ing the right data gov­er­nance frame­work is a step in the right direc­tion to ensure that hap­pens. It can help in both under­stand­ing where that data is com­ing from — be it machine-gen­er­at­ed, direct cus­tomer and ven­dor input, or out of an appli­ca­tion such as SAP — as well as under­stand­ing what infor­ma­tion to glean from it.

The only way you’re going to get that vis­i­bil­i­ty and real­ly under­stand the val­ue of your data is when you rec­og­nize data as an asset and treat it as such. With­out that mind­set, your data is useless.

Data: Who Owns What? 

On an enter­prise lev­el, we’ve talked for years about busi­ness process own­ers. It is equal­ly as impor­tant to talk about busi­ness data own­ers. Should they be the same per­son? Will that dual­i­ty in the own­er­ship help, in turn lead­ing to obtain­ing prop­er infor­ma­tion, in turn lead­ing to prop­er deci­sion-mak­ing that dri­ves growth? I think they should be the same person.

One of the biggest mis­con­cep­tions sur­round­ing data own­er­ship is that it should be the respon­si­bil­i­ty of IS/IT teams. Except for their own data, IS/IT teams are not and should not be the own­ers of enter­prise-wide data. These teams, instead, should be the data facil­i­ta­tors. They should help peo­ple under­stand where the data is com­ing from as well as its importance.

In my opin­ion, data is owned by that per­son, that team, or that func­tion that put it in the sys­tem. They should include not just data that is rel­e­vant to their process­es, but they also need to enter data that feeds an end-to-end process. It must be thought of as an asset for the entire organization.

Play­ing by the Data Rules so Every­one Wins 

By imple­ment­ing gov­er­nance and assign­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty for data accu­ra­cy across the board, you’re less like­ly to ques­tion the integri­ty of your organization’s data. From an oper­a­tional point of view, a data gov­er­nance frame­work reduces the army of spread­sheet jock­eys with­in your orga­ni­za­tion. It also allows you to oper­ate your over­head with a lean­er mind­set, which allows you to make more accu­rate deci­sions faster than your competition.

Hav­ing data gov­er­nance in place also allows you to move toward a dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, mak­ing your com­pa­ny an intel­li­gent enter­prise. New tech­nol­o­gy and appli­ca­tions alone will not get you there. Instead, it’s the abil­i­ty to har­vest and lever­age your data in a way that dri­ves your busi­ness for­ward. It’s the abil­i­ty to use it in inno­v­a­tive ways, from mul­ti­ple sources, and to be able to under­stand and explain the how, where, and why of it.

Mak­ing Your Data Gov­er­nance Frame­work Functional 

To get your data gov­er­nance going, you need to first make sure the key play­ers are at the table to dis­cuss what’s need­ed, why it’s need­ed, and how to move for­ward to get it. In any orga­ni­za­tion, own­ers of the data should be the key users who are most famil­iar with the data, and the IS/IT team should sim­ply be respon­si­ble for facil­i­tat­ing that data. And all of these indi­vid­u­als should be at the table when putting togeth­er a data gov­er­nance framework.

A strong frame­work will break down to the most basic lev­el what the data is and how it is used so that it can help peo­ple under­stand the impor­tance of the data. It allows busi­ness users to work across mul­ti­ple lines of busi­ness and func­tions in the process. That end-to-end process should have enabling tech­nol­o­gy that works with it, and it should out­line the require­ments for each of the steps along the way.

It is pru­dent that the IS/IT team steps up and help dri­ve process­es and facil­i­tate the data between busi­ness and data process own­ers all the way down to the key user net­work. If they don’t, then data gov­er­nance will not take place and you will not achieve the true ROI of your data.

The key is to first under­stand the data your orga­ni­za­tion has — on an enter­prise-wide lev­el — and then you can work to improve it. This mind­set needs to begin at the C‑suite lev­el, include help from the IS/IT teams, and have buy-in from the busi­ness and key users with­in the com­pa­ny. With that, you’re one step clos­er to func­tion­al­ly using your organization’s data.

If you have a ques­tion or sug­ges­tion, please reach out to undercovercio@​asug.​com. If you’re an exec­u­tive, email executiveexchange@​asug.​com to join our mail­ing list for invi­ta­tions to local and nation­al ASUG Exec­u­tive Exchange events, where you can net­work with oth­er exec­u­tives look­ing to get more val­ue from their SAP systems.