Organising Accountabilities for Data Quality Management - A Data Governance Case Study

Abstract

Enterprises need corporate data quality management (DQM) that com­bines business-driven and technical perspectives to respond to strategic and opera­tional challenges that demand high-quality corporate data. Hitherto, companies have assigned accountabilities for DQM mostly to IT departments. They have thereby ignored the organisational issues that are critical to the success of DQM. With data governance, however, companies implement corporate-wide account­abilities for DQM that encompass professionals from business and IT. This study examines a large organisation that has adopted an ad-hoc data governance model to manage its data. lt was found that its DQM efforts were hampered mainly by the lack of clear roles and responsibilities and the lack of mandate to carry out data quality improvement initiatives. In order to promote effective DQM, this research identifies a data governance structure with the emphasis on collaboration between business and IT to support organisations.