How to Establish Business-Driven Data Governance

Key Takeaways

• Involve business stakeholders early to ensure MDG projects align with operational goals, not just technical specs.

• Adopt low-code, automation-driven platforms to empower non-technical users and speed up solution design.

• Leverage real-time prototyping to keep business objectives front and center throughout the MDG lifecycle.

Organizations trying to get their SAP Master Data Governance (MDG) projects off the ground, however, can make some common mistakes. There's one common MDG deployment challenge: lack of alignment to business objectives.

Business Alignment: The Common Pitfall in MDG Deployments

Establishing a business-driven Master Data Governance program can be challenging when organizations are struggling to maintain stakeholder buy-in. Business leaders must be involved in the MDG project from the initial stages and must be confident that the investment will fuel data-powered decision-making that will ultimately improve bottom line. So, what causes organizations to miss business requirements in their MDG deployments, and how can this be prevented?

Oftentimes, we at Syniti see organizations embarking on MDG projects that are driven solely by IT departments or technical teams without involving business stakeholders, such as subject matter experts or product owners. This can lead to a focus on technical requirements without taking critical business objectives into consideration. In some cases, technical requirements may be given more weight than business requirements, resulting in a solution that meets technical KPIs but does not fully address business needs.

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Even when business stakeholders are involved, organizations still run the risk of missing business requirements due to these objectives not being clearly defined or understood. This creates confusion and a lack of confidence in the solution for business stakeholders; it can also delay deployment timelines and make the solution much more difficult to design and implement.

How Low-Code Tools Bridge the Gap Between Business and IT

To overcome this roadblock and establish business-driven data governance, organizations should begin by seeking out an intuitive, low-code solution. Business users often need help in visualizing what is needed from them in MDG projects, preferring a business-friendly interface with an automation approach rather than having to rely entirely on IT. Automation-based solutions with visual rule editing that take advantage of SAP Business Rule Framework (SAP BRF) can allow organizations to automatically add validation rules to MDG configuration tables. Organizations should choose a tool with a graphical interface that enables business users to easily create and maintain workflows and configure actions. With business-friendly drag and drop tools like these, users with no prior experience in the SAP BRF+ application or ABAP programming can easily navigate the solution design.

Organizations should also seek out a tool that offers solution development in plain sight, helping deliver transparent data early on and throughout the full project lifecycle. Users should have continuous visibility into business requirements as well as the solution prototyping, design, and testing phases so that they can measure business standards and configure the solution to meet these standards before it is finalized.

Oftentimes when an organization’s MDG deployment has missed business requirements, it is due to a rigid waterfall approach that doesn’t allow for real-time prototyping and solution configuration. Making sure your business team is able to monitor, test, and enhance the solution throughout execution will go a long way in preventing business misalignment.

Accelerate Business-Driven Governance with Syniti RDG and Deloitte D-GOAL

A solution like Deloitte “Clean Data” - Data Governance Accelerator (D-GOAL)  and Syniti Rapid Data Governance (RDG) offers users the ability to create tailored workflows to align MDG with their specific business objectives. Users can easily create new data models and add entities and attributes with RDG's hierarchical user interface. MDG data models can be easily extended in minutes for materials, business partners, finance master data, and more. The solution also offers business workshops with real-time prototyping so organizations can begin executing and delivering value even faster. These factors, combined with the tool’s low-code interface and time-saving automations, empower business users to take the lead in your data governance program.

Make Master Data Governance a Business Priority

Because SAP MDG initiatives require collaboration from multiple stakeholders across an organization, it can be challenging to establish a solution that truly meets a company’s technical and business requirements. For enterprises looking to establish data-driven governance, it is critical that Master Data Governance becomes a business priority within your organization – not just a technical one. Its value should be measured not only by adherence to technical policies, standards. and compliance metrics; but by how significantly it impacts the company’s bottom line. This approach, when paired with a solution like Syniti Rapid Data Governance and Deloitte D-GOAL, can help enterprises unlock the full potential of their Master Data Governance investment.

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