Courtesy of Nadine Arendse of iT Web

Data governance is important but it must be part of a broader IT governance structure; there must be common ground between IT governance and data governance.

This is according to ITWeb BI summit speaker John Bosco Arends, consultant at Neken & Associates, who says this ultimately affects business intelligence (BI) because organisations need to understand what data governance means to them - they need to know what type of data they have and how to treat it in order to address governance issues.

Deloitte & Touche analyst Werner Swanepoel gave some pointers to organisations to consider when managing their data. He suggests that certain questions need to be asked, such as: How is the data protected, how is it valued, how is it stored and how can its value be increased? Data is an asset for most organisations because of the value it holds, he said.

He added that data is not only about technology but about people, too.

Arends was of the same view, saying implementation of data management strategies for data governance must follow through to people, process and technology. There must also be a synergy around IT planning, he noted.

Key takeaways that emerged from the summit regarding governance were that increased legislation globally cannot be ignored; organisations need to check their internal processes before embarking on a data management project, and data needs to be treated as an asset due to the value it adds to business.