Unified data governance refers to a comprehensive strategy and the associated measures to ensure the quality, protection, access and use of data in an organization. This is no easy task, because on the one hand, data must be provided quickly and up-to-date, and on the other, it must also be reliable and protected.
Data is one of the most important resources in a company. In order to be successful in business, valid data-based decisions must be made. Two major hurdles must be overcome to ensure that the necessary data is available. Firstly, the data must be provided quickly and up-to-date, and secondly, the data must be reliably and securely protected against cyber threats and loss.
What you can expect here - an overview
1 What is data governance and why do we need it?
Trustworthy data is essential when it comes to complying with legal requirements, maintaining customer trust and providing the right employees with the right information to make the right decisions. However, it is often the case that the majority of data sets have significant flaws or are poorly protected. The good news is - these problems are not insurmountable.
The solution is unified data governance.
What is data governance and why do we need it?
Data governance is the organization of processes and responsibilities to increase the quality and security of the data used in a company. Companies can use it to control who can use which data and with which methods or approvals and authorizations.
In this way, framework conditions can be created to better exploit the potential of the data available in the company. Added value is generated for the company, which makes a decisive contribution to its longevity and success.
A well-structured data governance strategy supports uniform, standardized processes and responsibilities and forms the basis of the entire data governance framework.
The rules and specifications defined in the process relate to responsibilities and decision-making rights as well as corresponding security precautions for the data. This means that the company itself determines which data is available to whom and under what conditions. The handling of access data within the company or the handling of inactive employees or employees who have left the company should also be addressed.
In addition to data security within the company, data governance also places great importance on data protection. In this way, framework conditions can be created to better exploit the potential of the data available in the company using data science. This generates added value for the company, which can make a decisive contribution to its longevity and success. It also supports the goal of protecting data from cyber threats and ensures the overarching protection goals of confidentiality, integrity and availability.
Goals and benefits of data governance
One of the main objectives of data governance is to break down data silos in organizations. These silos are formed when individual business units operate through separate processing systems without central coordination and without a unified enterprise data architecture. Data governance aims to harmonize the data in these systems through a collaborative process involving stakeholders from the different business units.
Ensuring that data is used correctly is another goal of data governance, as it prevents data errors from entering the systems and prevents potential misuse of sensitive data and personal customer data. This can be achieved by establishing consistent data usage policies and methods for tracking usage and consistently enforcing the policies. Data governance can also help strike a balance between data protection regulations and data collection methods.
Organizations need to be aware of what data they need to protect and how they do it to protect themselves from threats. But how can data be protected if you don't know what data you have or where it is? Who has access to this information and to whom is it shared?
Data governance - unified and secure
Information security prioritizes how data should be protected, while data governance traditionally focuses on how data is used in a business, legal and compliance context.
In this context, information security and data governance as a combined concept is referred to as unified data governance.
Information security, data protection, legal and risk are some of the interest groups that play a major role in this. Many companies have already embarked on this path and made progress towards greater integration of the interest groups. However, many companies still find this difficult and often treat the various interest groups independently of each other.
The topic of information security is attracting more attention in the boardroom than data governance. This is mainly due to the fact that there has always been a great deal of media coverage when a lack of information security has been identified. In contrast, data governance is more fragmented in terms of definition, organization, development and funding. As a proactive method of reducing risk and enabling the full use of information needed in today's business environment, unified data governance is increasingly recognized as valuable by many organizations. However, organizations still struggle to create the right conditions and controls and find a balance between information risk and value.
Individuals and groups from various disciplines are involved in the introduction. In addition to data experts, employees from IT, the legal department and other specialist departments are also involved.
Each department has different objectives and considerations with regard to information within the framework of the IGRM model (Information Governance Reference Model), which differ from those of the other groups. In the following, the interest groups (stakeholders) are simplified into three groups with their primary focus:
- Business users
need information to run the company
Focus: Business | Profit orientation - IT departments
must implement the mechanisms of information management
Focus: IT | Increasing efficiency - Legal, risk and regulatory departments
understand the company's duty to preserve information about its direct business value
Focus: Legal, RIM, Privacy & Sercurity | Risk Management
The IGRM model emphasizes the need to view all activities in an organization as part of an integrated system based on common goals and processes.
Only by integrating all activities can companies ensure that they are managed effectively and efficiently, and the various activities must be coordinated with each other in order to achieve optimum performance, efficiency and information security.
Unified data governance and more IT security with ISR!
As part of your unified data governance strategy, we help you to enable the economical and secure use of data.
With our Managed ServicesWhat are managed services? Managed services can be defined as IT services that... More we not only ensure trouble-free operation, but our cloud and security services are also a secure backbone for your data.
Would you like to find out more about our services?
Jörg Fester
IT Manager
joerg.fester@isr.de
+49(0)151 422 06 957
