Data governance: the missing link between analytic value and strategic decision making

Utilities have long been chasing the promise of complete transparency into their day-to-day operations by investing in technologies that unlock a tremendous volume of granular infrastructure data. Most businesses now receive, store, and maintain massive amounts of digital information from diverse sources — from internal sensors on pumping stations and pipelines, to GIS systems, meters, clients, markets, and more.

These digital information capabilities have been built with the understanding they will enable insightful and informed decision making across the enterprise, including the ability to:

• observe and quickly respond to operational issues (e.g., outages),
• gain timely insight into supply and market trends, and
• recognize and efficiently address strategic priorities.

Unfortunately, many utilities have not managed to fully leverage this data to enhance their analytical capabilities, much less align these capabilities with their strategic priorities. Lacking these critical connections, businesses struggle to fully realize on the endgame of improved efficiency, operational insight, and predictive capabilities.

You have the data, now what?

Far from affecting just utilities, useful and actionable analytics remain a common challenge in many industries. According to the 2021 Talend Data Health Survey, 64 percent of executives work with data every day, but 78 percent have challenges making data-driven decisions.

Some of the most common issues driving this disconnect include:

• low data quality,
• existence of data silos,
• sub-optimal data access, and
• lack of trust in organizational analytics and business intelligence reporting.

The problem is often not a lack of data, but a lack of data governance.

Data governance ensures the right people, processes, and technologies are in place to overcome pervasive obstacles to useful and actionable analytics. As a practice, it also includes the policies, roles, and responsibilities required to enhance the value, utility, and trustworthiness of data.

Unlocking the true power of data

The challenge of data governance is so widespread across so many sectors that data managers have organized to identify and advance best practices and a common vernacular for managing data enterprise-wide. The original Data Management Body of Knowledge, (DMBOK™) standardized 10 data management knowledge areas, with data governance being the glue that brings them all together. The creation of a data governance program positions organizations to fully utilize the digital information they are already collecting by developing internal capabilities to identify, address, and resolve all their data-related challenges and ensuring seamless cooperation between business and IT interests while aligning data and analytic efforts toward high-value strategic priorities. 

Data governance improves data quality, data access, trust in data, and helps to remove silos. It is only through these improvements that utilities can realize the true potential of data to enable informed, strategically aligned decisions.

Contact us

To learn more about how MNP’s Data Governance Services can benefit your organization, contact Brian Foster, Business Intelligence Specialist, at [email protected] or 204.336.6131.