Data management is a process that involves establishing and enforcing processes, policies and procedures to manage data throughout its entire lifecycle. It ensures that data is useful and accessible, which facilitates compliance with regulations, and facilitates informed decisions.

The importance of effective data management has grown significantly as organizations automate their business processes, leverage software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications and deploy data warehouses, among other initiatives. This leads to a plethora of data that must be consolidated, and delivered to business analytics (BI) systems as well as enterprise resource management (ERP) platforms, and the Internet of Things (IoT), sensors, and machine learning, and generative artificial Intelligence (AI) tools for advanced insights.

Without a clearly defined data management plan, businesses can end up with silos that are incompatible and inconsistent data sets which hinder the ability to manage business intelligence and analytics applications. Inadequate data management can reduce trust between employees and customers.

To meet these challenges It is essential that businesses make a plan for data management (DMP) that includes the necessary people and processes to manage all kinds of data. For example, a DMP can assist researchers in determining the naming conventions for files they should apply to organize data sets to ensure long-term storage and access. It can also contain data workflows which define the steps to follow for cleansing, validating, and integrating raw data sets as well as refined data sets to ensure that they are suitable for analysis.

For companies that gather consumer information A DMP can help ensure compliance with privacy laws around the world such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation or state-level regulations such as California’s Consumer Privacy Act. It can also help guide the creation of policies and procedures for addressing data security threats and audits.

maintaining data processes the information lifecycle