Only a small percentage of global executives believe their enterprises are using data effectively, which is driving an increased focus on getting the right data to the right people at the right time, says Informatica.
Speaking at the Johannesburg leg of the Informatica World Tour this week, Ben Rund, Informatica's senior director for information solutions product marketing, said data quality was reaching the next level: the holistic data governance of information. "This covers the cleansing and optimising of data to ensure it is correct and up to date, as well as organising and automating processes to ensure the right information reaches the right people at the right time so that they can react appropriately and be more efficient."
In the drive for holistic data governance, companies had to establish what rules and policies applied to information. "This extends to clearly defining everything - right down to 'what is a customer?' This may seem like a very simple thing, but it is important to understand how the company defines a client - for example, whether a virtual potential client is a client or a prospect. Depending on the definitions, we may treat that person very differently."
Strategic planning around these policies, procedures and definitions typically entails a steering committee for data governance, which creates the rules and policies that will apply, as well as considering the strategic direction the company should take in terms of data governance and securing buy-in from stakeholders. Once the strategies, policies and rules are in place, technologies are able to deliver more efficiently. "It's always a combination of people, tools and processes that must work hand in hand," he said.
"Data governance processes are becoming more consultative and democratic. There will always be exceptions needed to the rules and policies so people need to be able to suggest or implement an additional rule," Rund said. "People will find a way to get around the official standards to make their things work, so this has become a hot topic in the data governance space," said Rund. "It has to do with the growing amount of data which results in a need for more rules, but on the other hand there is the paradigm of certain freedom of choice required to enable stakeholders to have an impact in optimising processes and systems. This is called 'Bi-model Governance'."
"This is a period of significant change. We have optimise and streamline information, as well as providing user interfaces more tailored to individuals' roles and tasks. At Informatica, we are providing tools that support this, allowing companies to service customers better. And customer experience overall will make the key difference for business in future."
Missed the Informatica World Tour 2015 in Johannesburg? No worries - please e-mail : info-za@informatica.com to learn more or get a copy of the presentations from the event.
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