Just as the creation of the internet and the World Wide Web has forced companies to bring on new technologies and consequently create new roles that they did not have 20 years ago, increasing data volumes and analytical power, as it relates to Business Intelligence, has had the same effect on organizations in order for them to be competitive. The emergence and adoption of the Data Steward role is more apparent and has increased significantly over the past several years.
This role is becoming more important as organizations realize IT cannot be responsible for the accuracy and consistency of their data due to their lack of knowledge of the business. Ultimately, understanding the business and keeping a system running are two entirely different tasks requiring two very different skill sets. The Data Steward role requires an extremely business savvy person and is not a role that can be easily outsourced, unlike highly commoditized IT roles. The Data Steward is the gate keeper of the data, the one who can map an account from the Sales CRM system to the spreadsheet in Accounting back to the SharePoint list used by Marketing, ensuring consistency, quality and accurate reporting throughout the organization and the integrity of the Data Warehouse. The Data Steward is also one of the first to be alerted of potential issues in systems due to non-conforming data. They are on the front line of an organization’s data. If a company does not currently have an employee(s) acting in this capacity, they should seriously consider it. After all, the BI system, as well as the critical decisions that are made from it, is only as good as the quality of data that reside in them.
This role is becoming more important as organizations realize IT cannot be responsible for the accuracy and consistency of their data due to their lack of knowledge of the business. Ultimately, understanding the business and keeping a system running are two entirely different tasks requiring two very different skill sets. The Data Steward role requires an extremely business savvy person and is not a role that can be easily outsourced, unlike highly commoditized IT roles. The Data Steward is the gate keeper of the data, the one who can map an account from the Sales CRM system to the spreadsheet in Accounting back to the SharePoint list used by Marketing, ensuring consistency, quality and accurate reporting throughout the organization and the integrity of the Data Warehouse. The Data Steward is also one of the first to be alerted of potential issues in systems due to non-conforming data. They are on the front line of an organization’s data. If a company does not currently have an employee(s) acting in this capacity, they should seriously consider it. After all, the BI system, as well as the critical decisions that are made from it, is only as good as the quality of data that reside in them.
Technorati Tags: Business Intelligence Consulting,Business Intelligence,Data Steward,Data Warehouse
