Why Data Governance – Your Data Does Matter!

We are very good at collecting marine data but not so adept at managing it or realising its value to our business. With data volumes doubling every 1.2 years and 90% of all data existing today having been created in the last 2 years, you would think that data governance would be a priority! Without data governance, a state of data ‘anarchy’ or disorder exists often resulting in damage to your brand, reputation, customer loyalty and the bottom line!

Appointing data stewards or managers is important to ensure data is cared for in a manner similar to other company assets, such as machinery or IT. Data is often seen as the responsibility of the IT department but this should not be the case; ideally IT would manage the ‘pipework’ or ‘plumbing’, with the flow of information through the ‘pipes’ being the responsibility of data stewards.

Data governance starts with auditing what data you have, where it resides in the business and its provenance, including quality. Defining the data life-cycle from creation to ingestion, storage, use and re-use and curation is the next step. If this is done as a team effort, this will help overcome the ‘silo’ mentality that often prevails between departments.

When is the best time to delete data? Never is the answer because if curated correctly with the appropriate metadata, data remains a ‘resource’ for others to discover and use in the future. As data is now considered the new ‘oil or electricity’, it is too valuable a resource to destroy or ignore so implement your data governance now and in doing so, treat data with the respect it deserves because ‘your data really does matter!’