Selling Information Governance to the Business

One of the major challenges with any information governance program is explaining the value to the business. Most information governance programs deal with certain themes that are common across every enterprise—poor data quality, inconsistency of business terms, fragmented view of the customer and product, and security and privacy. However, these themes manifest themselves differently across different industries and job functions.

Author Sunil Soares has spoken with hundreds of clients across multiple industries and geographies about their information governance programs. The conversation quickly proceeds along the following lines: “I get the value of information governance. However, it is very hard for me to convince the business about the value of an information governance program. What best practices do you have to help me do this?” This book answers that very question, providing cross-industry best practices as well as best practices and case studies for a variety of industries and job functions.

Other books discuss the importance of selling to the business; this book actually dives into the details and mechanics of doing so. In it, you will find best practices—supported by dozens of real-life case studies—to implement an information governance program across a variety of industries, including banking, financial markets, insurance, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, government, telecommunications, utilities, life sciences, and more. The book also demonstrates how to best obtain line-of-business sponsorship from marketing, finance, legal, human resources, risk management, and other areas of the business. In addition, you will learn the nitty-gritty of obtaining executive sponsorship, building an information governance organization, establishing a charter, conducting a maturity assessment, appointing data stewards, building business glossaries, and creating business cases.

Any practitioner who is implementing, or desires to implement, an information governance program will find this book an indispensable guide.

In Selling Information Governance to the Business, you will learn how to:

• Articulate the business problem for information governance for your industry and job function
• Identify the key stakeholders for information governance within your enterprise
• Write an information governance charter
• Identify data stewards
• Establish an information governance organization
• Develop a business case for information governance

Sunil Soares is Director of Data Governance within IBM Software Group. He works with a team of more than 200 industry consultants to help IBM’s top clients build out their Data Governance programs. Sunil has helped more than 100 clients across multiple industries assess their Data Governance maturity and determine the appropriate processes and tools to move forward.

More About the Author

Sunil Soares