3 Top areas IT Leaders needs to focus on "Uncertain Times to bring back Company to a Growth Phase "

There can be many areas both at macro and micro level Industry Leaders need to focus to bring back the Top-line and Bottom-line and bring the Organization back to Stability.

The 3 Top areas are...

1) Reduce Costs to Improve Margins in changing the Business models

2) Focus on the Areas, Verticals and Technology helping in Winning Large Deals

3) Identify Extraordinary Performers across Consulting, Sales, Delivery and Incentivise

Would like to hear from other Thought Leaders on their perspective to figure out other areas of focus on a larger note.

DATA GOVERNANCE - A need and necessity for all Organizations to get the best out of Analytics

Fragmented inconsistent Customer data hides revenue recognition, introduces risk, creates sales inefficiencies, and results in misguided marketing campaigns and lost customer loyalty. According to Forrester, 92% of companies believe having an integrated view of customer data is either “critical” or “very important.” Only 2% have actually achieved that goal. 

Why have only 2% of companies achieved a 360 Degree Customer view?
Because customer data integration (CDI) isn’t just about customer relationship management (CRM). Customer data is often created and maintained in non-CRM. Moreover   data warehouse is an analytical solution, not an operational, transactional solution.
And building your own customer master application is too risky–and expensive. Building instead of buying will keep you mired in data model design for years.
MDM (Master Data Management)  is the technical foundation of data management while Data Governance is its facilitating and supporting framework. More precisely, DG is a convergence of people, technology and processes that helps a business to manage the availability, utilization and security of their data assets.

SUMMARY
MDM is the technical foundation of data management while data governance is the overall business management framework that facilitates and supports technology implementations and ensures alignment with corporate strategy. 
Governance has its own set of program components. In this context, a technology namely (Data Governance Manager) DGM is designed to facilitate data quality and data stewardship processes for the data steward. It provides an intuitive graphical user interface that acts as the single management destination and reference for data stewards and business users to manage customer data throughout various stages of the lifecycle. 
Most companies do not combine data governance and MDM when getting started, so they fall short in addressing the people and process issues that cause data quality issue in the first place. Oracle’s Data Governance Manager simplifies and streamlines data stewardship 
tasks and is a core tool for improving data quality –which is a key to MDM success.

DATA GOVERNANCE 
Data governance is a system of decision rights and accountabilities for information-related processes, executed according to agreed-upon models which describe who can take what actions with what information, and when, under what circumstances, using what methods.

A sound data governance strategy not only aligns business and IT to address data issues; but also, defines data ownership and policies, data quality processes, decision rights and escalation procedures.

Business Challenges on CLOUD and does DATA Management has a Role ?

An IDC survey of 244 IT executives/CIOs and their line-of-business (LOB) colleagues identified a number of issues:

• Security - 74% identified security as an issue involving data privacy and resource access control. 

• Integration - 61% found that it is hard to integrate Cloud Apps with in-house applications. 

• Operational Costs - 50% are worried that On Demand will actually cost more given the impact of poor data quality on the rest of the enterprise. 

• Compliance - 49% felt that compliance with required regulatory, legal and general industry requirements (such as PCI, HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley) would be a major issue. When control is lost, the ability of a provider to directly manage how and where data is deployed, used and destroyed is negatively impacted. 

Obviously there are many more but have mentioned the Top 4 Issues because of their “Affiliation with Data Management”. Once Data Management is strongly integrated into a Cloud Computing infrastructure, can significantly revolutionize all of these problems. Data Management is the ideal Cloud companion. At a Strategic note, Data Management can immensely increase the chances for successful Cloud initiatives.”

Data Management provides a complete solution to each of the above concern areas:

• Security – Data Management provides functionality for Privacy Management for all Party Entities (Individual, or Organization). Also Data Management provides placeholders for stronger and effective Resource Access Control based on roles and responsibilities

• Integration – Data Management provides the platform for pre-integration of Cloud Applications with each other and with On Premise applications at the Data level. 

• Operational Costs – Data Management significantly reduces operational costs by increasing data quality, thereby improving enterprise business processes efficiency. 

• Compliance – Data Management  along with strong inbuilt Data Governance functional capabilities, insures that the data is governed, managed and maintained according to organizational frameworks, guidelines and standards. It provides the platform for speedy and truthful reporting for compliance resulting in increase credibility and avoiding cost penalties.

Weekend Thought continues.....