According to these leaders, the following areas can stand in the way of organizations achieving their data management goals:

Collecting and protecting ever-growing volumes of data. As one leader puts it, “Volumes continue to rise across all functions, without much regard for prioritizing what data must be maintained.” Achieving a holistic view of the entire enterprise data landscape and identifying sensitive data are also significant challenges. Finally, with increasing amounts of data to handle, it is getting more difficult to manage policy implementation and audit.

Shifting regulations. Generally, there can be a fear of committing unintentional errors in a dynamic and ever-shifting regulatory landscape. “Regulations changing all the time is a giant pain on top of an already complex problem,” one leader says. Inconsistencies may arise when trying to satisfy multiple regulators around the world, while cross-border transfers and data localization issues lead some organizations to try to avoid or minimize transferring data out of country and to develop cloud data centers around the world as well as new preferred partners.

New data-related regulations could also lead to increased complexity—for example, network segmentation because of data sovereignty—software development challenges, and higher costs. As one leader puts it, “All regulations are a cost of doing business. We adapt to them because we don’t have a choice.”

Cost and complexity of data privacy. Leaders are dealing with a greater focus on data privacy due to the complexity of customer requests and requirements, regulations (such as those necessitating storing data locally), and internal improvements. This is creating a ripple effect: “The cost of everything is rising, but our budgets aren’t rising with it,” one leader reports.

How Leaders Can Address Data Management Challenges

The amount of data organizations generate and collect will only increase, so continued challenges likely lie ahead. In response, organizations can focus on four areas:

Improving internal, ecosystem, and industrywide collaboration. Clear roles and responsibilities, aligned priorities, and transparent communication and policies are all essential to facing data management challenges head-on. Whether collaboration is more structured or ad hoc, a variety of functional viewpoints is critical. CIOs should be prepared to work with teams from research, security, legal, data management, business leadership, application development, infrastructure, and compliance.