What Is Data Management?

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Data Management is the discipline that deals with the handling of data within an organization as an invaluable resource for analysis and decision-making. It covers a broad range of procedures that ensure that all data is accessible when required and is reliable to drive actions.

Effective Data Management allows organizations to utilize their data as a strategic resource, regardless of its location within the organization. It provides improved visibility, reliability and security while also allowing the possibility of scaling. It helps to provide faster, more precise, and more reliable analytics that provide competitive advantage.

Organizations are faced with unprecedented amounts and types of data that could provide valuable insights into the business’s performance, but only if the data is properly managed and respected. Poor data management is costly and can erode the trust of those who rely on it.

The increasing number of personal data sources has brought about a new set of issues for ensuring compliance with consumer protection laws like the GDPR or California Consumer Privacy Act. Data management procedures can help to ensure that individuals are informed at the point of data collection and that they maintain control over their own data and that systems can easily be able to meet erasure or portability requirements.

Data management requires a team with specific skills and roles. These range from data architects, analysts and database developers, to data stewards. In larger companies the team is often comprised of data engineers and quality professionals who are working on data pipelines in order to support business analytics.