One Size Does Not Fit All: Best Practices for Data Governance

Data Governance defines roles and responsibilities for the management and use of corporate data. While the need for Data Governance is undoubted, companies often encounter difficulties in designing Data Governance in their organization. There is no one size fits all solution. As companies are different in terms of their business strategy, their diversification breadth, their industry, IT strategy and application system landscape, Data Governance must take into account this diversity. What works in company A does not necessarily work in company B. An example: A company from the chemical industry organizes data stewardship as a virtual organization with solid reporting lines to the business functions (e.g. supply chain management, financial accounting) whereas a second company of similar size, product range and geographic presence establishes a shared service center to organize data stewards.The presentation introduces a reference model for Data Governance design which was developed by the Competence Center Corporate Data Quality (CC CDQ) at the University of St. Gallen. The CC CDQ is an applied research program and intensively collaborates with industry partners. Among the partner companies are AstraZeneca, Bayer, Bosch, Beiersdorf, Deutsche Telekom, Nestlé, Novartis, and Siemens. Based on industry best practices, the reference model forms a blueprint for Data Governance design.