Archives: White Papers

Solving the Enterprise Data Dilemma

Harmonizing Data Management and Data Governance to Accelerate Actionable Insights

Is your organization using its data to reach deeper conclusions about how to:

  • Achieve regulatory compliance?
  • Drive revenue?
  • Make other strategic decisions?

Probably not, but you’re not alone.

The truth is that most enterprises don’t know exactly what data they have or even where some of it is. They also struggle to integrate known data in its various formats and from numerous systems—especially if they don’t have a way to automate those processes.

Does your business have a plan for solving this data dilemma?

It starts by harmonizing IT-oriented data management with business-led data governance to fuel an automated, high-quality data pipeline. That’s faster time to data preparation, data visibility and data-driven insights to realize results, including compliance, innovation and growth.

Download the e-book.

Examining the Data Trinity: Governance, Security and Privacy

A strong data governance foundation underpins data security and privacy

Creating policies for data handling and accountability and driving culture change so people understand how to properly work with data are two important components of a data governance initiative, as is the technology for proactively managing data assets. Without the ability to harvest metadata schemas and business terms; analyze data attributes and connections; impose structure on definitions; and view all data in one place according to each user’s role within the enterprise, businesses will be hard pressed to stay in step with governance standards and best practices around security and privacy.

As a consequence, the private information held within organizations will continue to be at risk. Organizations suffering data breaches will be deprived of the benefits they had hoped to realize from the money spent on security technologies and the time invested in developing data privacy classifications. They also may face heavy fines and other financial consequences.
An assessment of the data breaches that crop up like weeds each year supports the conclusion that companies, absent data governance, wind up building security architectures strictly from a technical perspective. They don’t gain visibility into the full data landscape – linkages, processes, people and so on – to propel more context-sensitive security architectures that can better assure expectations around user and corporate data privacy will be realized.

Find out how to connect the dots across the data trinity – governance, security and privacy.

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Application Development Is New Again

Realizing value from app development in the age of digital transformation requires strong commitment to data modeling and governance

It’s an exciting time for application development as enterprises turn toward digital transformation.

In this new world of app development, the business calls on application developers to play an increasingly important role in achieving business goals. Chances are, they’re being asked to create solutions that are real-time and mobile and likely draw upon analysis of large volumes of integrated data of diverse types (unstructured, semi-structured and structured) to support end users – whether providing them with personalized on-the-spot product recommendations, up-to-the-minute stock market portfolio values, or individual patient insights across the healthcare continuum.

Be positioned to deliver unique, real-time and responsive apps that will enhance your reputation among users and support a wealth of new business opportunities related to digital transformation. At the same time, preserve and extend the hard work you’ve already done toward maintaining well-governed data assets.

Find out how to get a head start on competitors in a world where application development is indeed new again, with our e-book that speaks to data modeling’s key role.

Download the e-book.

GDPR and Your Business: A Call to Enhance Data Governance Expertise

Any business in any sector catering to EU customers must ramp up data governance to meet demanding data privacy requirements

Although the effective date for GDPR compliance—May 25, 2018—is fast approaching, many organizations remain unprepared for the standard.

Protecting what traditionally has been considered personally identifiable information (PII)—people’s names, addresses, government identification numbers and so forth—that a business collects and hosts is just the beginning of GDPR expectations.

Organizations must expand their data governance expertise, understanding all the systems in which personal data is located and all the interactions that touch it. Knowing not only the original instance of the data but its entire lineage and how it is handled across the complete ecosystem is critical to ensure that security is applied at all appropriate levels and to quickly detect any points where an individual’s data may have been compromised in the event of a breach.

Moving these initiatives forward in a comprehensive and holistic manner makes sense not only for achieving GDPR regulatory compliance but also for making an organization’s employees smarter with data.

Data governance is the engine behind raising the bar on customer satisfaction and better decision-making too.

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2018 State of Data Governance Report

Does your organization have the right data governance approach?

erwin partnered with UBM in November 2017 to conduct original research on data governance.

We surveyed North American companies with 1,000 or more employees in 16+ sectors, including
financial services, government, healthcare, IT and telecommunications.

Among the 118 respondents were CIOs, CTOs, data center managers, IT staff and consultants.

Some of the results are a bit shocking. For example, only 6% of enterprises say they’re prepared for one of the most important data privacy and security regulations to be passed in recent years – that would be GDPR (the General Data Protection Regulation).

On the bright side, the business is beginning to realize the importance of data governance, moving it out from IT’s shadow. However, there are conflicting definitions for the practice and what it entails, plus IT continues to foot the DG bill.

The State of DG Report presents a cautionary tale about what enterprises need to do to advance their data governance agendas and includes some practical insights.

Download the report.

Application Portfolio Management for Mergers and Acquisitions in the Financial Services Sector

Effective business and technology integration with data modeling and enterprise architecture

As companies come together to complete a transaction, their success relies on multiple factors, with effective integration leading the pack. Integration must be accomplished across multiple fronts, of course. Clearly, technology is one of them.

Very likely, executives will want to conduct application portfolio management (APM) initiatives to support technology integration efforts. It’s important for executives to understand that successfully integrating entities at the technology level requires advanced analysis of these assets. It isn’t simply a matter of rationalizing applications with an eye to their surface costs.

Intelligent APM depends primarily on understanding application compatibility with business priorities, strategies and processes, as well as knowing what data types exist across the organization and where. This will enable the merged organization to maximize, optimize and govern its data assets and respond to management, customer, regulatory and other issues – regardless of which applications remain in place and which are phased out.

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Data Governance Is Everyone’s Business – Financial Services

Bringing IT and business together for a new era in data-driven financial service

Proper data governance has an impact on reducing productivity losses that go hand in hand with data problems, plus being able to understand and trust what data means within a business context is key to maximizing Big Data-driven analytics efforts to capitalize on revenue opportunities, solve customer issues, identify fraud and accelerate decisions that impact a financial services organization’s strategic positioning.

High-ranking executives and business teams that become more actively involved in data governance also can help prime their organizations to support the arrival of even more intense data regulations – primarily the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The banking industry is likely to be made an example of if an organization in the sector breaches GDPR.

Fortunately, the defining principles of Data Governance 2.0 should help address these and other pressing issues. This more mature stage of data governance is marked by the idea that everyone within the organization collaborates in the process, spreading responsibilities across more individuals and driving ranking business leaders to inform and enable the effort’s return on investment – from limiting data exposures to driving data opportunities, including growing revenue.

Download the e-book.

Data Governance Is Everyone’s Business

Bringing IT and business together for a new era in data-driven enterprise

This e-book explores the evolution of data governance, marked by the idea that everyone within the organization collaborates in the process, spreading responsibilities across more individuals and bringing ranking business leaders to the table to inform and enable the effort’s return on investment, from limiting data exposures to driving data opportunities – including growing revenue.

Download the e-book.

Data Governance 1.0 Is Dead, Long Live Data Governance 2.0

A white paper with special focus on the state of data governance in Australia

Regulatory pressures underscore the vital role of data governance, yet Australia’s organisations tend to lag behind in terms of defining what data governance means and how to approach it. This white paper explores data governance as a strategic initiative, as opposed to just an IT program, and how to get started.

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Application Portfolio Management for Mergers & Acquisitions

APM

Effective business and technology integration with data modeling and enterprise architecture

The M&A spotlight often focuses on eye-catching mega-deals, but small- to mid-sized companies, which often are privately held, also pursue M&As as perhaps the most efficient way to stay competitive, grow talent and expand business into new markets.

As companies come together to complete a transaction, their success relies on multiple factors. But chief among these is effective integration, which must be accomplished across multiple fronts including technology.

Executives likely will want to conduct application portfolio management (APM) initiatives to support technology integration, and not just with an eye to surface costs. Now there’s opportunity to harmonize IT estates from a more holistic perspective that ultimately will serve the business better.

That opportunity exists for smaller businesses, too, which generally have less M&A experience and a greater need for immediate agility in the wake of closing a deal. Indeed, a more thoughtful approach to APM could play a role in lowering the high failure rate of M&A deals.

This e-book explores intelligent APM, using data modeling and enterprise architecture to maximize, optimize and govern data assets and respond to management, customer, regulatory and other issues – regardless of which applications remain in place and which are phased out.

Download the white paper.