Data governance is the practice of maintaining the availability, accuracy, quality and security of data within a company through various policies and standards. The key task of data governance is that company data is simultaneously safe, of high quality and easily available for analysis.  

Data management is a broader term than data governance. It can be defined as the practice of identifying, processing, storing and protecting organizational data used to make strategic business decisions. Although this includes data governance, data management also includes other aspects such as data preparation, data pipelines, data extract, transform, load (ETL) and data architecture.

Effective data governance helps companies reduce risk (data leaks, legal penalties, reputational damages), save time spent on “chasing” and checking the accuracy of data, improve communication between different teams, speed up and strengthen the business decision making process.

Data governance is a long-term program whose launch requires a detailed analysis and definition of adequate data policies and procedures, as well as the roles and responsibilities of people within the organization who use, access, store and otherwise use data.

The first step towards the implementation of the data governance program is to define the data strategy and goals. In this step, companies should ask questions such as – What business goals and results do we want to achieve using data? In doing so, one should focus not only on short-term but also on long-term goals, and it is important to take into account external factors such as legislation and cyber threats.