Why are risk managers consistently singling out data quality and availability as the main obstacles to improved enterprise risk management? While there is ample anecdotal evidence of failed projects, “grey imports” and frustrated business users, there has been a lack of root cause analysis. Our new research indicates that poor usability is leading to perceptions of low usefulness, and ultimately to low levels of user adoption.
How did we get here? The lack of authoritative sources and quality-at-source has meant that there are few options available if you want to mitigate your own risk, and need to avoid liability for providing services that use poor quality data. The prevalent model of centralizing, normalizing and distributing a “golden copy” record is hard to execute without missing all or some of the key success metrics of quality, speed and value. So a strategy built on centralizing data services has too often resulted in “build it and they will come” projects. But this is not just an IT or project management challenge. Close to 60% of firms identify low process maturity as a key obstacle, yet it is still not clear who is responsible for acquiring (and paying for) data, managing exceptions and controlling how data quality is measured and maintained.
So what can institutions do in the short term to lower the cost of data, increase quality, and make it easier to use? We have identified Six Pillars of Innovation in Data Management which have the potential to transform the cost, quality and usefulness of data. In the next two years, firms need to invest in software solutions and services that focus on:
1. Access management and cost containment
2. Time to value and fast on-boarding of data
3. Usability and high levels of business adoption
From 2013 onwards, firms need to prepare for the impact of three further industry wide innovations:
4. Regulation and standards will improve data process and format consistency
5. Data democratization will allow firms to right-size their data acquisition and distribution strategies
6. Big Data technology will offer the opportunity to scale and integrate unstructured data
Join us for a webinar to discover how adopting a “Six Pillars” strategy is helping firms achieve their objectives of cost containment, risk management and regulatory compliance.
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