Hey business owner, did you know that organizations lose millions of dollars due to data breaches caused by crappy governance? According to stats from IBM and the Ponemon Institute, the average cost of a breach skyrocketed from $3.86 million in 2020 to $4.24 million in 2021. That’s a lot of money!
But sadly, a study by Gartner revealed that only 16% of companies have a solid governance program in place. What a shame! Data breaches don’t just mess with your wallet due to penalties; they also tarnish your reputation and screw up customer trust.
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Let’s accept the truth, inaccurate, incomplete, or insecure data assets are a recipe for disaster. Not cool, right? So, how do you ensure your governance program is up to snuff? Are there any shortcuts to save your business from trouble? Here are some valuable tips to help you out:
Define quality and security standards
Start by defining what you want to achieve when it comes to the quality and security of your assets. Identify the critical data types, and determine what quality attributes matter most. From there, establish stringent standards for accuracy, completeness, consistency, and timeliness.
To ensure security, define policies and procedures to protect your assets from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, modification, or destruction. Identify the security risks, and determine the controls to mitigate them.
Implement quality and security controls
Once you establish the standards, it’s time to implement controls to ensure your data meets them. For quality, enforce best practices like data validation, cleansing, and enrichment. For securing your Data Catalog, implement access controls, encryption, and data loss prevention.
Access controls ensure that only authorized users can access the assets, while encryption and data loss prevention protect them from theft.
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Monitor and measure performance
To ensure your data is top-notch, you must monitor and measure its performance against the established standards. Use tools such as quality scorecards and security audits to measure the efficacy of your governance program.
It will help you identify areas that need improvement and take corrective action before something goes seriously wrong.
Train and educate your staff
Is it enough to implement policies and procedures for data governance? Of course not when so much is at stake! Your team should fit into the puzzle seamlessly. Make sure your staff understands the importance of quality and security and knows how to comply with the standards.
Provide training and education programs to help them understand the risks and how to mitigate them.
Continuously review and update
Data asset governance is not a one-and-done deal. If you think and act that way, get ready for big trouble. It requires continuous review and updates to stay relevant and effective for the long haul. As your company evolves, your governance program should adapt to meet its changing needs.
Review your policies and procedures regularly to ensure they align with your objectives and comply with changing regulations. Make adjustments as necessary to improve the quality and security of your data assets.
Summing Up
In conclusion, data governance is vital to ensure the quality and security of your data assets. By implementing it well enough, you can rest assured that your data is accurate, complete, consistent, timely, and secure. Don’t wait until it’s too late! Get your governance program in gear today.
