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3 Data Management Challenges—and 4 Ways to Respond

21 Ιανουαρίου 2023

3 Data Management Challenges—and 4 Ways to Respond

3 Data Management Challenges—and 4 Ways to Respond

Data can be a double-edged sword for technology companies. If wielded with skill, it can cut through the competition. If managed poorly, the resulting operational and technical challenges can lead to self-inflicted wounds.


These are among the candid sentiments shared by a group of technology industry leaders with data management expertise and influence.1 They indicate that they largely have a high degree of confidence in their ability to handle any data management issue but admit challenges still exist around governance, privacy, security, and architecture.


Those who feel ahead of their peers credit modern applications and infrastructure, multiyear transformation initiatives, data loss prevention solutions, strong organizational collaboration, and robust policies for governance, privacy, and security. The few who feel their organizations are lagging say they have lacked resources to enforce their governance, privacy, and security policies and can struggle with data quality.

Data can be a double-edged sword for technology companies. If wielded with skill, it can cut through the competition. If managed poorly, the resulting operational and technical challenges can lead to self-inflicted wounds.


These are among the candid sentiments shared by a group of technology industry leaders with data management expertise and influence.1 They indicate that they largely have a high degree of confidence in their ability to handle any data management issue but admit challenges still exist around governance, privacy, security, and architecture.


Those who feel ahead of their peers credit modern applications and infrastructure, multiyear transformation initiatives, data loss prevention solutions, strong organizational collaboration, and robust policies for governance, privacy, and security. The few who feel their organizations are lagging say they have lacked resources to enforce their governance, privacy, and security policies and can struggle with data quality.

Data can be a double-edged sword for technology companies. If wielded with skill, it can cut through the competition. If managed poorly, the resulting operational and technical challenges can lead to self-inflicted wounds.


These are among the candid sentiments shared by a group of technology industry leaders with data management expertise and influence.1 They indicate that they largely have a high degree of confidence in their ability to handle any data management issue but admit challenges still exist around governance, privacy, security, and architecture.


Those who feel ahead of their peers credit modern applications and infrastructure, multiyear transformation initiatives, data loss prevention solutions, strong organizational collaboration, and robust policies for governance, privacy, and security. The few who feel their organizations are lagging say they have lacked resources to enforce their governance, privacy, and security policies and can struggle with data quality.

Roadblocks Leaders Face

Roadblocks Leaders Face

Roadblocks Leaders Face

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.

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.

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.

Staying on top of rapid regulatory change. Strategic investments and choices should be made with potential regulatory developments in mind. Establishing strong, cross-functional collaboration and well-established workflows can help organizations react quickly to regulatory challenges, with some organizations maintaining dedicated teams or roles to monitor and evaluate the impact of global regulations. Modern infrastructure can help as well. According to one leader, “Most of our critical infrastructure is new, automated, and in the public cloud, which gives us an advantage in terms of agility. We can redesign and redeploy much of our infrastructure confidently.


Improving training to increase employee awareness and compliance. Better user education and stricter enforcement of data management and cybersecurity rules are important considerations. Data leaders indicate they might share in the responsibility and alleviate the burden by seeking to implement more automated tools. “The average user is not suited to be responsible for understanding the full scope of data they handle and shouldn’t be saddled with this level of accountability,” one leader says. “We have to provide more intelligent systems and processes.


Modernizing infrastructure, deploying automated solutions, and experimenting with emerging tech. To streamline systems and create a lighter footprint, organizations can look to move to a fully SaaS-native cloud and standardize their tools across all clouds. Leaders may also seek to integrate new data sources and improve their ability to process real-time information. Some are beginning to experiment with automated data classification, including deployment of homegrown and commercial AI and machine learning tools.It can be difficult for technology industry leaders to weather the many challenges of rising data volume, shifting regulations, higher costs, and increasing complexity. However, by focusing consistently on collaboration, flexibility, modernization, and automation, they may enhance operations and better anticipate and respond to regulatory requirements.

Staying on top of rapid regulatory change. Strategic investments and choices should be made with potential regulatory developments in mind. Establishing strong, cross-functional collaboration and well-established workflows can help organizations react quickly to regulatory challenges, with some organizations maintaining dedicated teams or roles to monitor and evaluate the impact of global regulations. Modern infrastructure can help as well. According to one leader, “Most of our critical infrastructure is new, automated, and in the public cloud, which gives us an advantage in terms of agility. We can redesign and redeploy much of our infrastructure confidently.


Improving training to increase employee awareness and compliance. Better user education and stricter enforcement of data management and cybersecurity rules are important considerations. Data leaders indicate they might share in the responsibility and alleviate the burden by seeking to implement more automated tools. “The average user is not suited to be responsible for understanding the full scope of data they handle and shouldn’t be saddled with this level of accountability,” one leader says. “We have to provide more intelligent systems and processes.


Modernizing infrastructure, deploying automated solutions, and experimenting with emerging tech. To streamline systems and create a lighter footprint, organizations can look to move to a fully SaaS-native cloud and standardize their tools across all clouds. Leaders may also seek to integrate new data sources and improve their ability to process real-time information. Some are beginning to experiment with automated data classification, including deployment of homegrown and commercial AI and machine learning tools.It can be difficult for technology industry leaders to weather the many challenges of rising data volume, shifting regulations, higher costs, and increasing complexity. However, by focusing consistently on collaboration, flexibility, modernization, and automation, they may enhance operations and better anticipate and respond to regulatory requirements.

Staying on top of rapid regulatory change. Strategic investments and choices should be made with potential regulatory developments in mind. Establishing strong, cross-functional collaboration and well-established workflows can help organizations react quickly to regulatory challenges, with some organizations maintaining dedicated teams or roles to monitor and evaluate the impact of global regulations. Modern infrastructure can help as well. According to one leader, “Most of our critical infrastructure is new, automated, and in the public cloud, which gives us an advantage in terms of agility. We can redesign and redeploy much of our infrastructure confidently.


Improving training to increase employee awareness and compliance. Better user education and stricter enforcement of data management and cybersecurity rules are important considerations. Data leaders indicate they might share in the responsibility and alleviate the burden by seeking to implement more automated tools. “The average user is not suited to be responsible for understanding the full scope of data they handle and shouldn’t be saddled with this level of accountability,” one leader says. “We have to provide more intelligent systems and processes.


Modernizing infrastructure, deploying automated solutions, and experimenting with emerging tech. To streamline systems and create a lighter footprint, organizations can look to move to a fully SaaS-native cloud and standardize their tools across all clouds. Leaders may also seek to integrate new data sources and improve their ability to process real-time information. Some are beginning to experiment with automated data classification, including deployment of homegrown and commercial AI and machine learning tools.It can be difficult for technology industry leaders to weather the many challenges of rising data volume, shifting regulations, higher costs, and increasing complexity. However, by focusing consistently on collaboration, flexibility, modernization, and automation, they may enhance operations and better anticipate and respond to regulatory requirements.