As the volume and complexity of data available to a business increase, so do the risks it faces. That's why it's crucial to adhere to certain rules and best practices.

This ensures that a company can meet growing demands, maximize the value derived from data, and minimize overall costs.

A systematically designed data governance strategy is fundamental for any enterprise dealing with big data.

In this guide, we will explore:

- What data governance is

- The advantages it offers

- Best practices in data governance

- Challenges that have emerged

Let's start with a basic definition.

What Is Data Governance?

Data governance is a set of processes that define data security measures, how data will be used, and the responsibilities and authorities of individuals accessing and utilizing that data.

By adopting a data governance strategy, organizations ensure that data is of high quality, secure, and easily accessible for deeper business insights.

In today's era of digital transformation, where data volume is constantly increasing from new sources like Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, businesses need to reevaluate and readjust their data governance methods.

This is to reduce data silos as much as possible and scale their business intelligence (BI).

Now that we've seen some basics about data governance, let's move on to the key benefits it offers.

The 3 Main Benefits of Data Governance

Data governance is of utmost importance as it defines the roles, policies, standards and various metrics that help ensure that an organization uses the data it has effectively, achieving its goals.

The main advantages offered by data governance are the following:

   Benefit #1: High-Quality Data

Data governance ensures the integrity, completeness, and consistency of data.

Quality data allows companies to enhance and optimize their business decisions, as they can better understand their customers' needs and potential areas for improvement where they are lagging behind.

   Benefit #2: Limiting Data Silos

Data silos in an organization are a key problem that many businesses face.

Data silos are usually created when individual units in a company deploy separate transaction processing systems without any central coordination and data architecture.

By implementing data governance practices the data team works more collaboratively.

Thus, by following some standards and rules a company eventually manages to limit these silos to a significant extent.

   Benefit #3: Ensuring Data Privacy

Data governance policies aim to ensure that data is used correctly and in accordance with various data protection regulations, such as the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

This helps companies avoid breaches and misuse of sensitive data, along with potential penalties.

Practices and Challenges of Data Governance

The adoption of a data-driven culture and proper education about data governance are crucial elements for ensuring that members of an organization are informed about data usage rules and responsibilities.

It is important that there is continuous communication between the data team both among themselves and with corporate executives, and more generally that there is a climate that will encourage broad participation in decision-making.

Additionally, effective data governance requires leadership, such as a data science manager, who provides guidance to ensure smooth operations aligned with corporate goals.

If there is no such leadership role, or the company fails to invest in resources and upskilling employees, then challenges can arise in properly adopting a data governance program.

In fact, according to research by Gartner, the above are some of the key challenges that exist in the field of data governance and organizations are called upon to resolve.

Specifically, according to the survey, among the biggest challenges for a company to achieve its data governance goals are:

- Lack of a standardized approach to data governance across the organization

- Lack of key roles

- Lack of ability/experience to take initiative

- Lack of funding to drive data governance outcomes

Ramping Up

We covered what data governance is, its benefits for businesses, and some best practices and challenges that have emerged.

Proper training in data governance and skills in the field of data science are essential for the evolution of a business in today's competitive environment.

If you are intrigued and want to learn more about the world of data science, follow us for more educational articles!