Data Governance and Data Management Are Not Same

Data is one of your organization’s most valuable assets. If you do not know how to manage data or govern its usage, you risk losing data. Then, you might miss growth opportunities. If you are not already familiar with data management and data governance, see these statistics: 

1. Data storage capacity worldwide is projected to grow from 3.7 zettabytes (ZB) in 2019 to 175 ZB by 2025. 
2. The average business has over 2,000 applications and use more than 1,700 cloud services daily. 
3. By 2025, organizations will spend $1 trillion per year on digital transformation technologies. 

Irrespective of your industry, becoming a data-driven enterprise defines the difference between success and failure. But why do we use the terms data governance and data management? 

This article will cover those two most popular practices. By the end of this piece, you will learn how data governance and data management differ from each other. 

Interestingly, both techniques help businesses become more efficient at using their data. 

Also Read: The Impact of Data Quality on the Management of Big Data

First, Learn What Data Management Encompasses

In data management, you are “organizing and maintaining data” processes to meet ongoing information lifecycle needs. For example, data management services include the following components: 

• Data management systems and tools. 
• Storage and data warehousing. 

• Integrity and reliability of data. 
• Records of Version History. 
• Data format conversion. 
• Tabulation and analysis of data. 
• Queries and related data retrieval. 

• Cybersecurity measures for data. 
• Relational databases (RDBMS). 

Now, Understand What Data Governance Does

Data governance is the practice of managing data availability, usability, and integrity throughout its lifecycle. Again, remember that we are talking about access privileges and modification controls in data governance. And data governance decides the communication practices as well.

Yes, data governance and data management are used interchangeably. And yes, they are not the same thing. Now, you have an elementary idea of why the difference between these two terms exists. 

Through the next sections, you will get more clarity about this difference. To achieve success in your industry, learning this is important. 

Data Management and Data Governance Differ in Scope

Data governance services ensure data quality through proper implementation and enforcement of policies and standards throughout their lifecycle. 

And data management focuses on managing how information is created, stored, accessed, and secured within an enterprise architecture. 

Some Similarities Exist Between Governance and Management of Data

We are here to discuss the distinct aspects of data governance and management. But we must know why the confusion between these ideas is so prevalent. See these overlapping dimensions of these two methods. 

• Both processes can be considered attempts at risk prevention when handling business data. 
• Both data governance and its management are required to meet the legal compliance specifications. 
• Both operations help you avoid unnecessary costs related to poor quality or inaccurate data. 

So, how does data governance differ from data management operationally? 

1| Storage Infrastructure vs. Storage Regulation

Data management focuses on creating storage infrastructure for data warehousing and data lakes. But data governance determines the policies and frameworks that regulate this activity. 

So, DBMS or database management systems can arrange the data in a structured style. However, exactly which fields and data formats are to be used is the scope of data governance. 

2| Role Management vs. Role Responsibilities

In data management, the IT and operations departments can specify which person has a specific role. And this detail is securely stored and updated when a person gets promoted or demoted. 

However, through data governance, the company defines the responsibilities for each role. Here, standard protocols and procedures inform the hierarchy of authority. 

3| Data Availability vs. Data Access Authorization

Businesses use data management to organize and preserve corporate data. This is limited to the secure storage, periodic updates, and maintenance of ICT infrastructure. 

Data governance has not much to do with the above activities except for deciding the technical specifications. Instead, the data governance officer controls who can access a database at a regulatory level. 

Conclusion 

We hope this article has helped clear any confusion about data governance and data management. These are both essential concepts for any business. So, it is important to understand the differences between them. 

If you need help with these operations, contact us. SG Analytics team can get started on your data governance project right away.