Regulatory pressures, integration initiatives and the risks associated with electronic discovery challenge all levels within an organization to appropriately manage their responsibilities surrounding the information they use to run their business. This discipline is at times referred to as data governance. Providing the necessary oversight for your information and understanding the risks in not doing so correctly is paramount. Your organization may be engaged in trial and error, debate, and skills growth in this area. Accountability and shared risk are common attributes of governing the information in your company. Failing to manage (or govern) the data in your organization creates risk, and the discipline of governance squarely addresses creating the business processes needed to manage that risk, whether it is security, compliance, quality, or any other data related challenge. Realistically, there is no one person or entity that is accountable for data or for data governance, so the approach is to create an organization that can manage new data related processes. Historically, the risks associated with data have been pushed into the IT organization or, more recently, pushed right back to business stakeholders. Most if not all successful information management projects have implemented a shared accountability and risk strategy, between IT, business stakeholders (or stewards), and sometimes vendors, suppliers, consultants and even customers.
ICAP Consulting Group believes that a tactical, project based direction is the best way to create a stable, unified data governance capability within an enterprise. We know that a data governance strategy will be unique to each client organization, based on culture, capabilities and priorities. Project by project, challenge by challenge, our clients grow the capabilities needed to walk the path of well managed data. Our clients are successful in implementing data governance because it is outcome driven, based on very real business objectives, that can be cost justified and quantified. For example, data migrations, the need for transparency to meet regulatory and compliance objectives, or litigation, are all projects that drive the need for an improved approach to your data management roadmap. A set of data governance business processes is the most effective framework to enable your organization to meet these challenges. Data governance is a journey that is accomplished one win at a time.
Does your data support your business objectives and regulatory requirements? If not, you have a data quality problem. Sounds simple, but it can be quite complex. There are excellent tools on the market to enable new data quality processes and projects, but there is more to it than just technology. Sound business processes, great organization, resources and skills, combined with good technology, are what make data quality projects successful. Many of our clients come to us, having purchased tools, looking for best practices around managing the projects that utilize the new technology. An integrated approach, combining good processes and technology, is needed to address the business issues that are driven by poor data quality, such as the challenges of duplicate vendor data, inadequate transaction classification, inconsistent product or component data that impacts supply chain management, a lack of lineage for financial data, or an inability to reconcile corporate asset data to actual assets.
Have you lost faith in your data? At ICAP CG, we don't expect our clients to have blind faith in their data. We show them the path to well managed data with proven integrity. We accomplish this by applying the appropriate data management principles, best practices to planning and implementing projects, and toolsets where needed. ICAP CG helps clients map the route to information confidence and assurance. This is an essential requirement for implementing a successful data management project or program, such as data migration or compliance reporting.
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