Overcoming enterprise data management challenges

Every large organization is facing a deluge of information. Data comes in a wide variety of formats, structured and unstructured and it’s being generated in ever larger quantities.

To get business value from this data, organizations need to have a robust approach to how they manage it and make it available to the right people, at the right time, in the right way. And that’s where data management comes in.

What is data management?

Let’s start with a definition of what we mean by “data management”. Fundamentally, it’s the process for how your organization acquires, validates, stores and distributes data.

It describes not just how you maintain data but also how people use it. After all, data is of little use if it doesn’t enable people to do their jobs more productively and help the business to make strategic and operational decisions.

Yet, for a large enterprise, this is often a challenging task.

Typical enterprise data management challenges

Most modern businesses need to manage an enormous amount of data from many different sources. Data is continually changing and the speed at which organizations are able to integrate, analyze and draw actionable insight from it can significantly affect future business success.

Unsurprisingly, this results in a number of challenges:

• Dealing with numerous data types from different systems. Many systems have their own preferred data formats, so while you need your systems and databases to share data, this often involves time-consuming integrations and workarounds.
• Ensuring data quality. Data can become outdated very quickly. But more than this, it can be inconsistent across systems, geographies and even individual users. This can make it problematic to compare data on a like-for-like basis. It’s why Orgvue has data harmonization at its heart.
• Dealing with unstructured data. Today, it’s rare that data is clearly defined, as in a spreadsheet, for example. Instead, we see more and more unstructured data. This is qualitative in nature, such as job descriptions or responses to surveys. It’s much harder to filter and analyze data like this but it often contains high-value insights.
• Having the people to manage your data. Data management specialists are in short supply. This may constrain your ability to deal with even basic data management tasks, such as cleaning and integrating data from different sources.
• Ensuring your data is well governed. How you manage and protect data is vital. International data regulations are increasing and carry heavy fines. Stories of hackers trying to steal valuable information are commonplace, so having good governance and solid security is essential.
• Turning raw data into actionable insight. Without a way to turn it into useful information, data can be more of a cost to the business than a benefit. Data represents the raw material but you need the right tools to extract the insights that enable fast, confident decision making.

Why is proper enterprise data management important?

Without effective data management, large organizations will struggle to gain a clear picture of their current state. The sheer volume, variety, and velocity of data can lead to difficult-to-access, often contradictory performance indicators that make objective decision difficult.

With good data management, businesses can transform their perspective to give them a more accurate view of what’s happening. They’ll be able to make use of a range of indicators and compare “apples with apples” to determine which factors are at play in what they see across their organization.

Getting the right systems in place

With the right tools, you should be able to quickly consolidate your data and create a single source of the truth. Orgvue lets you bring together disparate data, clean it and integrate it with drag-and-drop simplicity, getting your business information into shape.

By better managing your data, you’ll be able to build a solid foundation for understanding what’s happening in your business right now, and see what needs to change to achieve your future objectives.

And you’ll be able to do it quickly, so you can respond in a timely way to changing circumstances and be ready for whatever the future brings.

Read more about data management

By moving data onto a single platform, it’s easier to remove inconsistencies and map it to a baseline to develop future plans. Learn more about data harmonization with Orgvue.