With calls for improved risk management, transparency and integrity in every boardroom, data governance is now a business imperative.

There is an inherent need for the modern financial services organisation to break the dominance of the business silos which hamper positive cultural and technical change.

Data management strategy is now a paramount consideration since it directly affects profitability and sustainability. Minimising risk and improving the integrity, speed and accuracy of information transfer and retrieval is critical to success.

The data management landscape now features technology where manual intervention and the possibility of error-risk can be eliminated. This not only allows for improved decision-making but will also enable the business to redeploy people to more rewarding and profitable roles.

Information is at the heart of every financial services organisation. As such, it should not be relegated to an administrative function or considered as a low-value, low-priority function in a departmental or divisional backwater.

Isn’t it time that data governance was brought to the top of the board agenda, if not for the sake of compliance, for the welfare of the enterprise?