Introduction:
Companies produce 5 quintillion bytes of data every day – a breathtaking number with – for the uninitiated — 18 trailing zeroes. Given how much digital information flows into and out of enterprises today, it is not surprising that the foundation of most companies today is firmly rooted in big data.
With such reliance on bits and bytes of digital information, it is no longer acceptable for any company to take a blasé approach to data governance. Getting straight to the point: It is time to make data governance a central focus of your IT initiatives, right now.
Significance of Data Governance to your business
If your organization already has a data governance initiative underway, you need to validate that it is up to the rigors of today’s swelling data horde. Make today the day that you vow to develop a plan of action to kickstart or re-invigorate your data governance initiative.
Until recently, data governance has primarily been focused on structured data from various databases, as well as the management of master data. But with the twin trends of digital transformation and the COVID-19 pandemic, today, up to 90 percent of corporate data resides in unstructured form (which includes the conversion of structured data to unstructured formats like PDF and Excel). Unfortunately, data governance initiatives had not normally focused on these unstructured files, but they represent the largest sources of data exfiltration.
Until recently, data governance initiatives focused on data quality, data ownership, data usage, data provisioning, data definition, and data classification. While these are important, additional items such as data security, data retention, and data sharing have gained urgency. Data governance is no longer just a data problem; it is a data, security, and collaboration problem.
Microsoft – which has been on the bleeding edge of creating cloud-based solutions for corporate data management – has answered the call by rolling out Microsoft Purview. It is the only product in the market that combines eDiscovery, data classification, data governance, data security, and information lifecycle management.
At Netwoven, we leverage Purview as the focus of our next-generation data governance deployments. But, for a complete data governance solution, we recommend considering the following as part of your initiative:
- Data Governance Council
- Data Domain
- Information Protection
- Record Retention
- Identity and Access Management
- Sharing and Collaboration
As you embark on the data governance initiative, you want to look for a partner that has experience in working with structured and unstructured data, has experience with data security, and has experience in setting up collaboration technologies. At Netwoven, put our years of Microsoft 365 experience to work for your organization. Reach out to us to learn more about our data security and governance services.
