|
IBM Council Predicts Data Will Become an Asset on the Balance Sheet and Data Governance a Statutory Requirement for Companies Over Next Four Years
(Marketwire Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) ARMONK, NY, July 7 / MARKET WIRE/ --
The IBM (NYSE: IBM) Data Governance Council
today predicted five key information challenges that will reshape corporate
behavior and the market's ability to trust information during the next four
years.
The global Council recently met to discuss how businesses will handle the
enormous amount and complexity of information generated by organizations
and financial markets. Their findings included the prediction of five
imminent, information-related issues:
-- Data governance will become a regulatory requirement in an increasing
number of countries and organizations. In some countries, organizations
will have to demonstrate data governance practices to regulators as part of
regular audits. This will likely affect the banking and financial services
industries first, and will emerge as a growing trend worldwide.
-- The value of data will be treated as an asset on the balance sheet and
reported by the Chief Financial Officer while the quality of data will
become a technical reporting metric and key IT performance indicator. New
accounting and reporting practices will emerge for measuring and assessing
the value of data to help organizations demonstrate how data quality fuels
business performance.
-- Calculating risk will be used more pervasively across enterprises for
small and large decision-making and will be increasingly automated by
information technology. Today in most organizations, risk calculation is
done by a select group of individuals using complicated processes. In the
future, risk calculation will be automated providing greater transparency
to more easily examine past exposure, forecast direct and indirect risk,
and set aside capital to self-insure and cover risk.
-- The role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) will change, making
this corporate officer responsible for reporting on data quality and risk
to the Board of Directors. The CIO will have the mandate to govern the use
of information and report on the quality of the information provided to
shareholders.
-- Individual employees will be required to take more responsibility for
recognizing problems and participating in the governance process to
facilitate greater operational transparency and the identification of risk.
They will be aided by new categories of operational software that will
demonstrate common data governance problems and allow employees to self-
govern; sponsor and vote on new policies; provide feedback on existing ones
and participate in dynamic data governance.
Data has become the new currency in today's information economy, but many
businesses make the wrong decisions by not using the right information.
"There is no one-size-fits-all approach to data governance," said Richard
Livesley, head of information governance and quality, BMO Financial Group.
"Every company must configure their own data governance program based on
their individual needs. Likewise, there are different levels of data
governance maturity and different ways of attaining it. In just a few
years, data governance will become a key benchmark as boards of directors
recognize their fiduciary responsibility to enhance and protect data, and
markets measure business performance by looking at data value and risk on
the balance sheet."
The IBM Data Governance Council is a group of 50 global companies,
including Abbott Labs, American Express, Bank of America, Bank of
Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd, Bank of Montreal, Bell Canada, BMO Financial
Group, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, Discover Financial, Kasikornbank,
MasterCard, Nordea Bank, Wachovia, Washington Mutual and the World Bank,
among others, that have pioneered best practices around risk assessment and
data governance to help the business world take a more disciplined approach
to how companies handle data.
According to the Council, investors and consumers alike will benefit as
data governance emerges as a required discipline for organizations, giving
rise to greater trust, better transparency and reduced risk. Data
governance today is at a crossroads, creating the opportunity for a marked
change over the next four years as data quality evolves into a key
performance indicator for businesses worldwide.
To meet growing market needs, the Council plans to build an Information
Governance Framework based on their existing Data Governance Maturity Model
that will define standards and best practices. This new framework will
provide guidance for organizations to execute data governance at a granular
level with defined roles, tasks, activities and a broad set of data
governance procedures to make data governance a part of business
operations.
"Organizations today understand that data governance is a strategic
imperative but they need help making it work," said Steve Adler, chairman
of the Council. "Upcoming work by the Council will help organizations
better understand governance, how it will benefit the bottom line and be
reported to the markets, as well as the desired end result for each
business. This is an important contribution the Data Governance Council can
make in the marketplace and we invite others to participate as we build
standards that define the next level of maturity for this important
discipline."
Data governance helps organizations govern appropriate use of and access to
critical information such as customer information, financial details and
unstructured content, measuring and reporting information quality and risk
to enhance value and mitigate exposures. IBM's work in this area supports
and furthers the company's Information on Demand strategy, announced two
years ago, that has delivered results through consistent earnings growth,
hundreds of new customer wins, strategic acquisitions and industry-first
software offerings.
For more information on the Data Governance Council, go to:
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/tivoli/governance/servicemanagement/data-governa
nce.html
Add to Digg Bookmark with del.icio.us Add to Newsvine
Contact:
Holli Haswell
512-590-8879hhaswell@us.ibm.com
Copyright ? 2008 Marketwire
[ Back To cable.tmcnet.com's Homepage ]
|