Microsoft And Data Governance

Published on: October 01, 2024

Last week, I was lucky enough to attend two insightful mini-conferences. The first event was a small get together at Microsoft for the Data Governance Executive Forum. A couple of big takeaways from there:

🔥 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗚𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗱𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲
•   Data governance is more important than ever, and we should focus on value add versus risk and control.
•   "Customer Zero" a concept not just related to DG, but a concept where you practice what you preach, drink your own champagne, et cetera, you should be the first (sorry, zeroth) customer of your own data solutions and principles -- e.g. make your own data governance metrics / data your first data product.

📚 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗖𝗮𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘀
•   Data Products are not a new paradigm, but they are coming to life, and are starting to make an impact on business -- the exact form is still very fluid, but it's congealing around some key concepts.
•   Data catalogs are growing as a topic, and as a potential driver for unlocking value pockets in the enterprise, at the same time also data catalogs as a concept themselves are changing, super interesting space to be in with a ton of untapped potential.

🤖 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗤𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝗜
•   Good Data Quality is a pre-requisite for meaningful (Gen)AI in the enterprise -- a topic which is very alive in the data governance community, and I think it will break out of our small group very soon.
•   Bad data quality / management / governance will lead to a very expensive mess if you throw AI into that mix.

Big thanks to Microsoft's Amandine De Veyt for the invite, but also to BCG's Sander van Loosbroek, Nutreco's Patrick van Kalken, and Microsoft's Delphine Clement for showing their Data Governance visions.