Think You Can Guess the Biggest Data Management Challenge?

Master data management tools vendor Profisee recently released its first annual data management study. The 2018 State of Data Management report was conducted between January and April of 2018 with an aim of providing information that will help the data management community better understand benchmarks, best practices, challenges, trends and insight into how other organizations are doing it. The 731 responses were collected through trade shows and other digital channels.

83 percent of those polled reside in North America, and financial, retail and distribution, software and technology, manufacturing and healthcare and medical were the industries most represented. The biggest data management challenge was gaining sufficient engagement of business stakeholders, with 57 percent reporting this issue. Other notable challenges are establishing a data governance function and driving accountability within data stewardship communities. Profisee correctly admits that a strong business case is necessary to enable success with data management, or any data management, for that matter.

Obviously higher quality data and better analysis are two of the top benefits of successful data management. This sentiment is echoed inside the report, as 87 percent of those polled agree. Other major benefits include a reduction in operating cost, maintenance of regulatory compliance, and streamlined operations. The study also uncovered a growing concern over data quality, with data workers increasingly demanding the need for more robust governance mechanisms to encapsulate the availability and usability of enterprise data.

The survey also revealed that many organizations view data management as a nice to have, not an enterprise imperative. In this way, it seems as though these examples include a lot of reactionary data management investment and not so much proactive movement. There’s also the fact that IT remains the top data steward in the majority of organizations. The study found that those in IT analysts made up nearly 30 percent of the dedicated data management expertise in the enterprise, though business users, analysts and developers also played a role.

One thing is for sure, and that’s that data management will continue to increase in popularity. This will come as a result of not only the need to generate better analysis, but to meet the demands of security and compliance regulation as well.

We highly encourage you to read the report in full here.