How do I sell Data Governance Internally?
One of the most common questions I’m asked is how to relate the value of Data Governance to the business.
In some types of organisations, a Data Governance function is accepted as part and parcel of operating in that industry. This is the case in banking for example.
As a CDO, your reason for being is assured in the same way as that of the existence of the Chief Compliance or Chief Risk Officer.
In other industries, the office of the CDO and the data team is not mandated.
Either way, selling the value of your proposition to the business should be one of your top priorities.
Data Governance requires organisational participation.
It’s a team sport!
You need business buy-in and involvement and your job is to convince them that this is a worthwhile endeavour.
Data Governance has an image problem
So how do you do this?
If your organisation is anything like most, Data Governance will be seen by many merely as a cost centre.
To be honest, very often, we don’t help ourselves.
I’ve seen many corporate intranet pages where the Data Governance function is advertised as being about frameworks, policies and standards.
Not a particularly strong advert, is it?
It doesn’t exactly sell the value of Data Governance to the people who we need to buy in.
As a person responsible for, say, increasing revenue, how would you interpret a function that defines itself in terms of frameworks and standards?
Would you see the Data Governance team as an enabler and a partner?
Let’s be honest, positioning Data Governance in this way really puts us up there as a second-line policeman function (no offence to second line!).
What it doesn’t do is to put us in with the business as an essential partner in solving real business problems.
So how do you move from being the data policeman to the corporate problem solver?
What’s in it for me?
With any new initiative, the number one question that people ask is what’s in it for me?
Neat frameworks, standards and a nice set of processes don’t answer this question.
What they want to hear is how your initiative acts as catalyst for one of two things:
· Decreasing opex
· Maximising revenue
This is the language the business understands.
So, when you speak to the business, this is the language you need to use.
It’s not about the data…
During your interactions with the business, you need to be focused on the business priorities.
Your conversations should revolve around the following:
· Business-critical processes
· Business pain points
· Organisational Strategy
Business Critical Processes
Step away from talking about data quality for the sake of data quality.
You need to relate the data quality to the processes that are fundamental to the efficient operation of the business.
When I commence my business interactions, one of my first priorities is to identify the critical business processes.
How does this organisation tick?
The next step is to then determine how data is used within those processes. Only then do I start discussing quality expectations.
By focusing on the efficient operation of the business and its core processes, you are talking in a language that the business can relate to and understand.
You are talking the language of the business.
What I’ve found is that having these conversations with the business shifts their understanding of what you’re about.
It helps them to start perceiving Data Governance and you as a value-add, rather than a second-line policeman.
Pain Points
Closely related to this is the identification of current pain points.
This is why one of the first things I do is to try to find out where the pain points lie.
What is currently stopping the business from fulfilling its objectives or proving difficult?
A key focus should be on understanding these pain points and working with the business to develop actionable plans to solve them.
To do this you need to think about the following:
· Quick Wins: which of these pain points can be resolved quickly?
· Strategy: to what extent do any of these feed into strategic objectives?
· Organisational Risk: do any of these pain points include a risk to the organisation?
Quick Wins
Some of the pain points you uncover will be relatively easy to solve. You always want to identify these as soon as possible and look to action them rapidly to gain traction with the business.
Anything that involves an IT component is probably off-limits here. You don’t want to embark on a major IT initiative to prove your worth and sell your wares.
The business will not hang around for you.
Look for pain points that can be solved through simple things like enhanced QA controls or the issuance of new processing instructions and ongoing monitoring.
A lot of data quality issues originate from processes that don’t quite join up. These are your ideal candidates to resolve.
Strategic Objectives
Ideally, you want to link these quick wins to strategic objectives.
Do any of the pain points impinge on your organisation's strategic objectives?
When thinking about your quick wins, if managing the pain point involves considerable re-work and one of the strategic objectives is to cut costs, this, again, is an ideal candidate.
But be sure to try to quantify the cost of the re-work the business is currently undertaking. You need to be able to demonstrate value in a tangible way.
Case in point…
In one insurance carrier I was engaged with, we discovered that, due to reserves not consistently being reduced to nil when a claim was closed, there were circa $33 million being factored into reserving calculations that shouldn’t have been.
It was a slam dunk quick win. But the ease of fixing it was out of proportion to the impact of the issue.
The resulting reserve inflation, whilst this was undetected and not fixed was money that could not be spent on resources, staffing or shareholder dividends.
In an organisation that was laser-focused on driving down costs, it demonstrated why Data Governance must have a seat at the table.
Organisational Risk
The other tangent is whether any of the potential quick-win pain points could result in a risk to the organisation materialising.
This may be a regulatory risk. Is there a regulatory dimension to this?
Legislation is an increasingly important facet of business life. It’s not just limited to industries like financial services either.
Alternatively, it may be a reputational risk.
Think about the recent fine (£61.7 million) levied upon one large financial institution for failing to prevent a “fat finger” error worth $444 billion.
It’s not just the financial penalty. The reputational damage can be just as great as the regulatory sanction; if not more so.
Strategic Plans
We’ve already touched on the business strategy when discussing pain points, but you should also be mindful of how the overall strategy will require quality data to enable execution.
AI is the current flavour of the month and features in some way, shape or form in the strategies of many organisations.
If this is your organisation, you need to understand the use cases pertinent to it and the data that will be required to make them operational.
As a CDO, you have a huge part to play in providing the organisation with the mechanism for ensuring that the data used to develop its AI capabilities is fit for purpose.
But AI is just one example. A modern business needs data to run efficiently and data will therefore be vital for any business strategy to succeed.
Putting yourself in the shoes of the business
Selling Data Governance, then, is really about putting yourself in the shoes of the business.
It’s asking the question, “What does the business care about”?
Whilst they may not care about data per se, they do care about the processes and strategies that are so often underpinned by data.
The frameworks, processes and standards are just the enablers. They’re your back office if you like.
Your front office is the work you do to understand the business need and to ensure that it is met with quality data.
This is what opens the door to get you that coveted seat at the corporate high table.
In the next article, we’ll focus on why your data governance initiative may not be seeing the level of impact you would like and expect.
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