Do you know the differences between data governance and data management? Learn more about the terms and their definitions in this handy guide.
One of the defining characteristics of a successful business is how well the leaders understand and use data to generate value for their employees and customers. With the unprecedented amount of data becoming available to companies, it is important that they use as much of this data as possible to gain a competitive advantage.
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When it comes to optimizing data for business use, some data terms and functions are used somewhat interchangeably. Data management and data management are examples of this, although the two data strategies serve different business purposes. In this article, we highlight the meaning of these terms, their importance, and some of their key similarities and differences.
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What is data management?
Data management is the practice of collecting, organizing, protecting, sharing and storing data so that it can be analyzed for business decisions. It helps improve data scalability, visibility, security, and reliability. With the vast amount of data available to organizations, it has become essential for organizations to use data management to extract maximum value from the data available to them.
While data management is generally viewed as the responsibility of an IT department, all business users play a key role in the pursuit of data quality when they follow data management policies and procedures.
One of the main benefits of a well-designed data management system is that it eliminates subsystems in an organization and improves the flow of data between business units. This improves the overall operational efficiency of the organization and allows for more flexible decision-making.
Data management is a sweeping concept in data strategy that encompasses several more specialized data practices, including data architecture, data modeling, security, data management, data catalogs, and more. Data management solutions are designed to manage the increased volume of data, provide analytics tools, and meet compliance requirements.
What is data management?
Data management is a discipline of data management. It ensures high quality data by making it secure, available, usable, and consistent. One of the main goals of data governance is to create harmony between data in different business units. Another goal is to ensure that data is used appropriately through the implementation of data management policies and procedures.
IT departments held accountable for data governance are typically responsible for focused data governance efforts. As with data management as a whole, data governance is not the sole responsibility of the IT department. An organization can have several individuals or teams play the role of: data stewards in their organizational structure.
While data governance requires stakeholders from different business units, an organization should still consider having dedicated teams and individuals who bear ultimate responsibility for data governance initiatives. Some companies have a chief data officer, a data governance manager, data stewards, or a data governance committee to direct data governance policies and practices.
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New regulatory compliance requirements, especially with regard to data privacy requirements, are a major reason why data governance has become increasingly important for organizations.
How does data governance differ from data management?
The main difference between data governance and data management is that data governance is a specialization that falls under the umbrella of data management. Data management helps define the procedures and policies for how data is used and stored. Data governance is the overarching framework in which these policies and procedures are executed and implemented alongside other key data initiatives.
Another key difference between these two terms is that data management is often managed by technology and the appropriate data management toolset is in place. While data governance is somewhat dependent on the tools data professionals use, successful data governance focuses more on strategy and planning.
Do data governance and data management ever work together?
Not only can data governance and data management work together, they must be used together to extract the most valuable business insights from data. To have a successful data management system, an organization must also have sound data management policies and procedures to guide decisions and use of data.
Both data governance and data management are essential components of an organization’s data strategy. For these two functions to work together, it is important for leaders to build a corporate culture in which stakeholders understand and value the power of accurate, ethical data.
Data governance can be seen as the blueprint to build a building while data management is the construction of that building. The full data management lifecycle is what helps drive business outcomes for the organization.
Data management tools are an important part of an organization’s data management technical stack. More information about the best data management tools here.
