Customer Data Integration: Reaching a Single Version of the Truth

ORGANIZING AROUND DATA

Once we’ve established that data is an asset that needs to be managed and maintained, the natural question most of our clients have next is: “Who?” We recommend establishing a separate organization to manage data. This will ensure that data is shared across the enterprise, with stakeholdership from both IT and the business, undistorted by specific, functional perspectives. Data management as an organizational function participates in the prescriptions of data governance while incorporating the tactical job roles around day-to-day data issues.

As they say in Texas, if you’re drilling for oil, it’s better to dig a 100-foot well than to dig 100 one-foot wells.

As they say in Texas, if you’re drilling for oil, it’s better to dig a 100-foot well than to dig 100 one-foot wells. Establishing a centralized data management organization and putting formal processes is master data management writ corporate-wide, and enforces data administration, requirements definition, standardization, cleansing, and maintenance across all data, not individual applications multiple times.

Launching the Data Governance Council

It’s important to note that data governance can work regardless of whether there’s a formal IT governance infrastructure in place. The features of an effective data governance council are:

• Its members come from multiple organizations from both IT and business areas. This is often the most difficult to enforce, since potential council members need to ...