Data as a Strategic Asset in Supply Chain Data Governance

We were engaged by a supply chain company that was undergoing an Integrated Business Planning (IBP) transformation. They wanted to initiate their Data Governance program and build a Data Governance plan to build trust in their data and deliver value to the organisation. The executives realised very early in the program that the IBP transformation benefits would be difficult to sustain in the absence of a Data Governance program. They were trying to make sense of all the data and relationship between various data points was missing, which required a comprehensive Data Governance Program. The company board was also worried about the impact of data breaches and resultant reputational damage and had given a remit to the executives to establish effective data controls.

he organisation did not understand the business value of data governance due to the perceived cost and complexity. The resources were struggling to devote time to special projects and the management had apprehensions about adding new products to their application stack. We also encountered resistance from a few data stakeholders who had a lack of awareness and training on the importance and use of data governance. Poor data quality was leading to inaccurate analysis. Funding for a long-term Data Governance Program was not forecasted.

• Our first task was to do an AS-IS State analysis using stakeholder interviews and surveys to understand the pain points and challenges. We started by positioning Data governance as a strategic organizational priority instead of being a problem which needed to be fixed by technical IT. We assessed regulatory compliance issues and started educating teams about the need to recognize data as a critical asset and thus the need to manage and govern data.

• We started with kicking of initial Data Literacy sessions with wider teams where we discussed concepts like data architecture, data quality and cleansing, data democratization and data analytics.

• The executives agreed to treat Data as a Strategic asset and communicated messages that non-compliance with the Data Governance Program would be unacceptable.

• We proposed setting up of a Data Office having a representative mix from relevant business units and which would be the driving force for all Data Management endeavours.

• We started working on the Target Data Operating Model and identified Roles and Responsibilities within the organisation and who should have the authority to make significant decisions, and what knowledge and toolkits and drivers they would need to make informed choices. We also started developing policies and procedures, escalation mechanisms and reporting structures for data governance issues and initiatives.