Operationalizing Data Quality through Data Governance - Data Governance: Creating Value from Information Assets - page 72

data quality. Data governance is about putting people in charge of fixing
and preventing data issues and using technology to help aid the process.
Any time data is synchronized, merged, and exchanged, there have to
be ground rules guiding this. Data governance serves as the method to
organize the people, processes, and technologies for data-driven programs
like data quality; they are a necessary part of any data quality effort. The
quality of a company's data dictates the effectiveness of the organization in
driving new business opportunities, delivering state-of-the art customer
service, managing risk and compliance, generating meaningful decision
support models, and reducing operating costs. In turn, the overall condi-
tion of data assets is directly dependent on the company's ability to align
people, processes, lines of business, and technologies. It requires that all
of these things be working together to produce the desired outcomes that
make data fit for its business purpose. The only way to align the inter-
dependencies of disparate people, processes, lines of business, and tech-
nologies is through a well-orchestrated data governance program. Data
governance includes the ability:
• To develop and implement data quality governing disciplines, guid-
ance, and roadmaps for data processes enterprise-wide or globally.
• To force the organization to develop enterprise data quality culture,
which helps people think more broadly about quality and to reexam-
ine their day-to-day practices.
• To assist the organization in being more clear about its objectives
with respect to reducing costs, increasing effectiveness and efficiency,
and improving the decision-making process.
• To provide users with confidence and stability when accessing and
using data arising from the organization.
• To improve relations and communication with the organization's
clients (both data providers and data users).
• To improve the standing of the organization in the wider community.
Are data quality and data governance the same thing? They share the
same goal, essentially striving for the same outcome of optimizing data
and information results for business purposes. Data governance plays a
very important role in achieving high data quality. It deals primarily with
orchestrating the efforts of people, processes, objectives, technologies, and
lines of business in order to optimize outcomes around enterprise data
assets. This includes, among other things, the broader cross-functional