When you work within an industry you assume that everyone knows what you are talking about. And we are all aware of the pitfalls of assuming.

One of our core values as an organisation is “Simplify and get it done”. Due to the complexity of what we do, it is vital that we keep our processes, both from an engineering perspective and a thought perspective, as simple and lean as possible.

This should also apply to how we talk about what we do and how we communicate with the outside world.

With that in mind, we will aim to explain the terms around what we do and our industry in general in the simplest form and on its highest level.

What is Governance?

Governance can be divisive in an organisation when it is misunderstood. It can be seen as a help or a hinderance when not properly explained.

Corporate governance is the system of rules, practices and processes by which a company is directed and controlled. Chartered Governance Institute UK & Ireland

These are the rules that essentially can help keep organisations out of trouble as they navigate the mountains of regulations in their specific industry.

What is Data Governance?

With the explosion of data and dispersion of storage ( remote working has drastically increased duplication of data and where it is stored), this places heavy responsibility on organisations to maintain its security through governance and compliance. As the saying goes, you can’t protect what you cannot see.

Data governance is everything you do to ensure data is secure, private, accurate, available, and usable. It includes the actions people must take, the processes they must follow, and the technology that supports them throughout the data life cycle. What is Data Governance?  |  Google Cloud 

What are the benefits of data governance?

• Better, faster decisions – through greater data intelligence

• Improved cost controls – through centralised policies and systems

• Enhanced Regulatory Compliance – enabling easier management of compliance audits

• Enhanced reputation with customers and suppliers – as an organisation is certified compliant

• Greater and simpler risk management

• Improved data management – reduced duplication and redundant data storage costs and structure your data for easier navigation

Strong data governance optimises organisations for success. It enables stronger, clearer and better decisions across a range of areas across a business. Risk and Compliance, Security, Finance, IT, Sales and Marketing can all be positively impacted by implementation of data governance. This impact can be financial, from a resource perspective, compliance and on reputation.

What is the impact of not having strong data governance?

According to McKinsey, poor data quality and availability means that employees can spend up to 30 percent of their time on non value-add tasks. Designing data governance that delivers value . That means they are searching for and interpreting data when they could be focused on value add projects and tasks.

It also leaves organisations vulnerable to cyber attack related risk as well as open to large fines from non compliance to privacy and security laws such as GDPR.

Why are Getvisibility writing about Governance?

And now for the marketing spiel (I know, there’s always an angle isn’t there?)

Its our business is to know data. We make it your business to own it.

In the previously mentioned McKinsey research, critical data typically represents no more than 10 to 20 percent of total data in most organizations.

The challenge is knowing what and where that critical data is.

Not only can we find it and classify it, we can protect it and enable governance standards.

For more information, contact us today.