by Angela Guess
David Booth of Marketing Land recently wrote, “If you’re like most organizations, you’re either in the thick of, or just putting the finishing touches on, your 2015 planning. Odds are good that your strategy for the coming year is going to depend on data and analytics. And while there has never before been so much data available to us, if you’re like most organizations, then odds are also good that you’re simply drowning in it. Today, formal governance with respect to data and analytics is not only a necessity when it comes to keeping your head above water, it can also become a true competitive advantage as others struggle to deal with and leverage their data to make better decisions.”
Booth continues, “What you call it is less important than who is a part of it and how it functions. Among our clients, we’ve seen it called the Data & Analytics Center of Excellence, a Data & Analytics Governance Board, a Digital Data Council, and even an Analytics Steering Committee. But every one of these groups share a few things in common. An extremely important aspect of a centralized data governance group is representation from various stakeholders across the organization. Even the word ‘analytics’ means very different things across the different groups within your organization. Finance, web, marketing, customer and business teams all generate and use data in very different ways, and often these data sets can end up living in isolated silos.”