Data governance key to delivering value

Data breaches affecting millions of Australians are on the rise. According to The Australian Information Commission (OAIC) a 26% increase in breaches was reported in the second half of 2022 — three-quarters of these data breaches were blamed on malicious or criminal attacks, including the high-profile breach at Medibank. More recently, Australian consumer finance company Latitude Group reported a data breach impacting customers across Australia and New Zealand.

The reality today for Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) throughout Australia is not about ‘if’ but ‘when’ their organisation will experience a data breach, and planning accordingly. For many this means reviewing existing data security settings and determining what else needs to be done by way of additional technology investments to reduce the potential impact and business disruption.

However, technology investments come at a cost and IT decision-makers are also increasingly concerned about inflation amid the current period of economic uncertainty. IDC’s poll of CIOs in December 2022 revealed that 49% are expected to reduce the ‘run’ part of the IT budget to fund new ‘build’ initiatives/projects in 2023. It is clear that “doing more with less” has become the new mantra and companies are doubling down on improving efficiency and optimisation by leveraging data to make better business decisions, inform quicker learning and innovate creatively.

Improving data governance for regulatory compliance

An organisation’s insights are only as good as the data it uses. When data is inaccurate, corrupted or has become obsolete, organisations spend more time verifying, cleaning and processing data they don’t need. This not only wastes resources but prevents the enterprise from scaling up its data efforts to harness advanced, real-time analytics, leaving them uncertain if they can “trust” the data enough to make informed decisions.

Good data governance practices improve regulatory compliance by enabling businesses to distil more granular insights in real time when needed — a critical part of business in highly regulated industries such as health care, financial services and the public sector. Tapping into data insights, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) lets organisations better identify compliance risks, reduce errors during reporting and automate repetitive tasks — freeing up employees to focus on executing higher-value activities.

Security protocols key to data governance

Organisations in highly regulated industries can get a head start by deploying hybrid data platforms that have built-in security and governance capabilities to support secure, authorised and appropriate use of data. This centralised governance approach facilitates compliance and avails self-service data access for all users, while establishing a consistent layer of security and governance across hybrid cloud environments and the organisation’s data-driven initiatives.

Hybrid data platforms are also able to efficiently manage metadata, data workloads and data applications between on-premises and in the cloud, while controlling data flows no matter where the data resides. Doing so allows consistent, simple, secure and scalable access and analytics of data across the organisation while reducing data silos.

Managing government data for maximum value extraction

The Australian Government continues to spend on big data and analytics solutions, hitting US$5.5 billion in 2022, and is expected to register a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.3% between 2021–2026, according to IDC. Having a data platform that functions as a single source of truth is the way forward as it enables traceability of data lineage, allowing employees a clear view of the data’s entire lifecycle as they aim for maximum accuracy and consistency of data while also fulfilling regulatory requirements.

The challenges faced by governments in extracting value from citizen data to make better decisions and, ultimately, improve lives are complex. More than ever, they need a proven platform that can securely simplify and manage their data from acquisition to delivery. The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is currently replacing its legacy e-health record system with a modern patient-centric health solution.

The new solution will incorporate private cloud-native data engineering capability and ingest data from multiple sources, including legacy systems and new data streams. It will create secure data products that streamline and operationalise the data within the ADF’s new Health Knowledge Management System for better and faster decision-making, to improve both the clinician and patient journey from primary to emergency care, rehabilitation to recovery.

Better data governance, better business

Having strong data governance practices in place provides enterprises with timely data, crucial in deriving valuable and accurate insights. These insights enable organisations to quickly identify growing market trends, reduce costs or optimise business processes in response. More importantly, proper data governance reduces regulatory risk, especially in the wake of an evolving threat landscape and business disruptions — a key requirement for organisations in highly regulated industries.

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