Extending the previous mentioned pitfall, managing data is not just a nice to have in making your digital ambitious come true. Data is traditionally seen as some technical issue IT should solve. Many businesses are becoming almost entirely digital however, making data processing and integration actually more of a core business capability. A customer is often just a set of data (a user account) that initiates digital transactions. And if all goes well, there is less and less actual human contact with customers, often only when things go wrong and customer care is required. So if data is so important to the success of the business, why is it not treated as such? Data is difficult and complex. Plus it often becomes a political topic because of the combination of problems with data pollution and the unclear ownership of data. In practice, I also often see a disconnect between data governance and managing data in the application landscape. I see managing data in your application landscape in the following way. The core applications define the heartbeat of your company. They run the transactions that keep your business alive. Keeping master and reference data synchronized makes sure that heartbeat runs smoothly, without producing pollution. Integration then is the blood running through the veins, making sure the data carrying the essential nutrients for the business arrive at the rights places. Are there no humans needed anymore then? Of course humans are still needed. People are less efficient in production or operations of the most common cases than software systems are, but are much better at supervision and handling exceptions in complex environments. The only thing left is making sure the external data your company consumes is validated before entering, and you are all set!
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