As investor expectations continue to grow, boards are putting more pressure on their leadership teams. This includes building a long-term corporate strategy that focuses on environmental, social and governance (ESG) responsibilities.
Specifically, leadership teams are paying closer attention to governance and the ability to enable data driven business decisions.
Governance includes several factors, such as corporate accountability, transparency, operating decisions, and risk management. In particular, having the right data governance strategy to build consumer trust.
Data governance strategy is key
Data governance is comprised of setting the right internal policies to enable the highest data standards across the data lifecycle. This includes setting up the right people, process, and technology (PPT) to ensure that data is secure, private, accurate, available, and usable.
Mature data governance programs include having a framework that is aligned with corporate strategy. But most importantly having the right governance team of key stakeholders to implement and enforce said policy and key principles.
Accountability and transparency that drives ownership and overall responsibility for data, including establishing data direction
Policies and procedures developed from a framework that defines how data will be treated, including having a plan for ongoing risk mitigation
Data stewardship that defines roles and responsibilities on data rules, ownership and overall accessibility
Data quality that ensures data is usable for drawing insights and making strategic business decisions
By having the right governance in place, organisations can minimise operating challenges, such as inconsistency with reporting, duplication in records, data integrity issues, etc. This further allows organisations to make better business decisions, mitigate risk and establish data trust.
Automation to enable the data governance strategy
Data automation is a process for collecting and processing data with the help of technology. This could include the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to manage processes, support legacy systems and data structures.
Whilst it must be set up correctly at the start, it is pivotal to implementing digital transformation initiatives and overcoming data challenges. This can help to reduce risk exposure and provide additional benefits, including, but not limited to:
Compliance with regulatory and reporting requirements and risk mitigation
Supporting data integrity to elevate the usefulness of data and creating better business decisions
Reducing cost by minimising manual labour and human error
Organisations must ensure that their data governance strategy is catered to the business needs. The right data strategy will provide greater accessibility to critical data sets, enable key business decision makers, and fulfil regulatory compliance obligations. The right data strategy will also require automation to process large data sets, generate insights and remain competitive.
How PRYZM is supporting its clients
At PRYZM, we strongly believe that data is at the heart of everything. We understand that the Finance function is responsible for solving complex problems and accelerating the digital transformation journey. However, we also understand that having the right data governance plays a key role in automation and the ability to make strategic business decisions.
Through our services, we help organisations harness technology and innovation to shape their visions, execute their strategies and reinvent their businesses in order to achieve exceptional, sustainable value from their technology investments.
We help organisations future-proof their businesses by defining a clear digital strategy, orchestrating the right combination of human and machine talent and enabling the finance function to deliver value by exploiting all sources of data and technology.
We strongly believe that automation goes beyond technology - this is why we work closely with your teams to explore the possibilities and optimise your business processes so that you can drive maximum value from the investments you make in your people and technology.