by Angela Guess
A recent article asks the question, who pays for data governance programs within a company? The article responds, “This is where the rubber really meets the road. You’ll see your previous efforts at getting executive sponsorship pay off here. This usually gets worked out behind closed doors, but you should have a proposal worked out ahead of time that everyone agrees to that you can bring to the table, so the executives involved have an easy meeting instead of a big fight on their hands.”
It continues, “The funding question is definitely influenced by the ‘where will data governance live’ question, since it may be funded out of that group’s budget. But it’s also reasonable to do allocations or charge-backs from all of the parts of the enterprise that data governance is serving (usually the entire enterprise). And make sure the funding is on a continuing basis, not just a one year commitment, since data governance itself is an ongoing activity, not just a one or two year process.”
The article adds, “One thing that will help a lot in future budget battles is if the data governance team has a dedicated place to track all of the benefits (revenue increases, cost savings, compliance improvements, etc.) that it delivers, with the business group it worked with signing off, to help fend off the inevitable funding renewal difficulties. If you can point to $x million in increased revenue and $y million in cost savings, it will be much easier to win your annual budget renewal each year. Remember, it’s always going to be – what have you done for me lately?”
