Data Governance for a Business

The CDO Midwest Summit 2022, hosted by CDO Magazine and ComSpark, provides a venue for industry leaders to discuss the immense possibilities in the data, analytics, and technology space, including an interoperability perspective. The session “Data Governance for a Business” focuses on building data governance as a functional asset for business as presented by the following speakers:

• Todd Henley, Data Strategy, Governance, and Architecture Manager, Northwest Bank

• Mark Marshalek, Head of Data Governance, Farmers Insurance

• Bhavna Mehta, AVP - Data & Analytics, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center

Randy Burgdorf, Senior Leader of Strategic Growth at Benchmark ESG, moderated the session.

Henley introduces the topic of data governance for business, voicing the need to pay attention to business needs and to ensure that the data governance program is in sync with the organizational strategy.

According to Henley, data strategy begins with understanding business goals and capabilities that support those goals while using data to implement those capabilities successfully. “In that process, you figure out what data management capabilities, governance capabilities, and architecture capabilities are going to support bringing the data to the business to get it to do what it needs to do,” he says.

Marshalek states that data governance instills visionary principles and helps the business achieve objectives better. 

Continuing, Henley highlights three key aspects he considers crucial for starting a data governance program:

• Culture

• Change management capacity

• Collaborative capacity

He believes these aspects bring forth a business’s needs to achieve its strategic goals and objectives.

“At Northwest, culture is not an issue except for data literacy and the ability to understand how to use data as a differentiator, as a growth medium,” Henley adds.

For Marshalek, communication is the key to relaying the need for data governance across the organization and how it could align with business objectives. Similarly, Mehta finds it necessary to have an executive sponsor and start a pilot program before “boiling the ocean.”

She highlights data governance as the key business driver because it standardizes definitions, removes data silos, identifies the source of truth, and accelerates analytics. Mehta also mentions the importance of having a data steward community working toward creating governed data assets and certification programs.

For Marshalek, compliance and data analytics are major drivers for improving risk identification in the insurance sector. Henley places compliance first and mergers and acquisitions second. He adds that customer acquisition is a must for a community bank to grow, which requires understanding the customers and demographic changes.

Henley suggests establishing a series of key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure success, including identifying critical data elements and dashboards. As part of the organization's data ownership/stewardship approach, data is used to create products for the business. Henley describes data quality metrics as “true KPIs.”

Marshalek focuses on management metrics as KPIs; for Mehta, it boils down to qualitative metrics and data stories. She believes data stories are powerful for getting traction.

Mehta also adds content-driven metrics to the list and points out that internal metrics look different from external metrics. Internal metrics deal with the program perspective, while external metrics involve the governance council executives waiting to see the impact. 

Next, Henley mentions the “dirty laundry metric.” “It is an engagement metric,” he explains. "If you come in and don't tell us what isn't working, then we will assume that everything is fine. We find out later that it is not all working great because they will come back and say we have some dirty laundry.”

The panelists also share their opinions on maintaining excitement within the organization. Mehta affirms that tying the vision of the data governance program with the organizational vision sustains the excitement. For Marshalek, communicating and understanding the team mindset adds value. 

Similarly, Henley believes it's essential to ask the right questions, understand what's in it for the stakeholders, and assess the gaps. Mehta concludes, “Data governance is persistence with a smile. It is a marathon, not a sprint.”

Watch other CDO Midwest Summit 2022 sessions HERE