- Is the return on investment in your BI and Workforce Intelligence programs less that you anticipated or expected?
- Are you finding that BI and Workforce Intelligence project success lags behind business goals and expectations?
- Do your BI and Workforce Intelligence users still not trust the data that you provide them for decision-making? Do they still maintain their own Excel spreadsheets?
- Have you discovered that your BI and Workforce Intelligence results are disappointing, even though you are using “top of the range” technology BI tools?
If any of these questions ring true for you, the problem is most likely to be in the original data itself as you most probably do not have an effective “Information Governance” (IG) strategy. An end‐to‐end Information Governance strategy and process establishes the necessary framework to turn data into business value.
In June 2011 Forrester Consulting, commissioned by IBM, researched current information governance practices, challenges and ROI in a sample of 200 Information Governance decision-makers. It was found that companies that implement an information governance strategy across their enterprise achieve better business results than those that are less mature in their governance initiatives.
The findings, quoted directly from this research, are:
- “Making better informed business decisions is the top business goal driving BI investments — and the area of lowest success. Business goals are the main driver of BI projects today, but at the same time companies report the lowest success rate for these goals as compared with more technical achievements.
- “High‐performing companies have implemented information governance strategies at far higher rates than low performers. It is not simply the analytical tools and technologies that differentiate top performers from their peers, but the way these tools are implemented.
- “Most companies have achieved significant success in the area of data security and privacy. The biggest investment so far has been in the areas of data security and privacy, and companies are generally satisfied with their achievements there. But future investments will need to go into other information governance areas, such as data quality, standardization, and data life‐cycle management, to establish a successful end‐to‐end information governance strategy.
- “74% of companies are planning an information governance project in the near future. While the implementation of an end‐to‐end information governance strategy is still relatively low ሺ32% of companies have already implemented IG within their enterprise, there is a large wave of upcoming projects over the next 12 months and beyond.”
The five key elements of Information Governance are:
- Data security and privacy which deals with, for example, data sensitivity segmentation, access protection, as well as compliance auditing, data masking, and reporting.
- Standardization and metadata management handles the definition of data structures and communication across different data sources and applications.
- Master data management eliminates data redundancies and inconsistencies across heterogeneous IT architecture landscapes.
- Information/data quality includes all processes like data testing and validation to achieve “trusted data” or “a single version of the truth” across the enterprise.
- Data life‐cycle management handles the processes for data monitoring, testing, repository management, and archiving and retention.
Most of the organisations surveyed understand the importance of Information governance, however just 32% had implemented aspects of Information Governance, with Data Security and Privacy being the highest level of implementation at 77% enterprise-wide, and Data Live-Cycle Management being the least implemented at 43% enterprise-wide.
An interesting aspect of the research is the comparison between high performing and low performing organisations compared with the level of implementation of Information Governance. Specifically Standardization and Metadata Management and Data Life-cycle Management with a 111% differential between high and low performing organisations for the former, and 104% differential for the latter.
So, to effectively use data for decision-making and business value, organizations need to focus efforts on Information Governance. Although most companies understand the concept and important of Information Governance, it is a complex topic that consists of a number of different elements. It is therefore a challenge for organisations to cover the full scope of the topic.
Through our partnership with HCMI, TalentAlign is in a position to assist you with implementing Information Governance in your organization. Contact us to find out how we can assist with your Information Governance.
To read the full research and the recommendations for implementing Information Governance, click here.