Many organizations are turning to data governance, which establishes policies and procedures for sharing data, as well as improving data's quality, structure, and auditability.

Furthermore, a goal of some data governance programs is to enable an organization to treat data as an organizational asset. Achieving this goal demands many interim goals, most involving dramatic change. For example, data governance transforms an organization's data, its data management technology, who owns the data, and how the organization uses data. Sweeping changes and business transformations like these need a central organizational structure such as a data governance committee or board, staffed with both business and technology people. The board must institute and enforce policies and procedures for data management and business use of data. And data governance is best coordinated with IT governance and corporate governance.

This report from TDWI Research clears the confusion by drilling into the business initiatives, technical implementations, and cross-functional organizational structures with which data governance intersects. It also quantifies the state of data governance adoption and describes some of the technologies and vendor products that can help automate data governance. All this information is tailored to assist business and technical managers in planning and implementing a sustainable data governance program.