Why Do You Need A Data Catalog For Your Data Governance Initiatives?

The year 2023 is off and running. It’s time to put a robust data governance plan into action if you haven’t already. For one thing, your data quality will be improved courtesy of data governance. But there’s more! Your company’s overall decision-making and competitiveness will have a significant impact.

To assist your data governance, however, a data catalog is instrumental. Where data governance is concerned, it is, in fact, a core component. In a nutshell, here’s how they relate to each other:

• Data governance – Identifies data users, stewards, and data owners.
• Data catalog – Shows an organization’s data assets and their location.

Companies can gain the upper hand on their data handling through the use of data catalogs.

Let’s take a closer look at how a data catalog plays a role in a company’s data governance initiatives.

What is Data Governance?

Depending on a company’s circulating data amount, their employees’ data maturity, and the organization itself, data governance can vary. According to existing data practices, companies will adopt an appropriate data governance strategy.

That said, data governance is defined as follows:

• Also referred to as DG, it is the process of managing the integrity, usability, availability, and security of an enterprise system’s data. This management is based on internal data policies and standards that, additionally, control the usage of data. Data is less likely to get misused and more likely to be trustworthy and consistent with effective data governance.

What are Data Governance Initiatives?

By assigning a team responsible for data’s uniqueness, validity, timeliness, consistency, completeness, and accuracy, data governance initiatives improve data quality. Members of the team may include data stewards, a line of business managers, project management, and executive leadership.

Data Governance Initiatives Example

To assist in a better understanding of data governance initiatives, here’s an example.

A data governance initiative may be adopted by an organization in order to achieve the following:

• Implement protection and establish enterprise security.
• The retention of new and old data, particularly data that is sensitive and/or highly valuable data.
• Distribute responsibilities and roles.
• Define data models.

What is a Data Catalog?

A data catalog is a tool designed to assist professionals who deal with data. With it, for any business or analytical purpose, they can locate the most appropriate data in an expedited fashion. An organization’s detailed data assets inventory is contained in a data catalog.

All of the Above Work Together

With a data catalog, data stewards and data governance managers will be assisted in ensuring that users within the company are complying with the governance procedures and policies. For example, they can track data set changes and user access controls, automate data governance workflows, and define policies in a catalog.

Best Practices for Data Governance Success

Better data quality will result from the implementation of an effective data governance strategy. When data quality is improved, a company can also experience the following:

• More understandable data
• Cleaner data
• Better business decisions and analysis
• Better commercial results

When designing a data governance project, numerous aspects should be considered. To unlock the power of your data, here are a number of best practices your company can follow:

• Set attainable, clear objectives
• Start small
• Engage data maturity
• Define responsibilities and identify roles
• Define data governance standards
• Facilitate the adoption of data governance
• Identify critical data elements
• Communication should be optimized
• Make progress visible

To reap the benefits of analytics, companies can streamline business processes with an appropriate data strategy. To all key players, make sure the project is visible and that you’re keeping open lines of communication.

If your plan is outdated, or you don’t have one in place, there’s no time like the present to get started!

To read more on data governance best practices, click here.