Compliance and security are part of the overall data quality picture

For companies that invest heavily into collecting consumer data and using it to improve their operations, there's a great deal of concern in the industry about data quality. If these firms are able to sniff out the errors and imperfections in their data clusters, make their information more accurate and keep these problems from cropping up again later, they'll be on the fast track to success.

However, quality data isn't the only key to analytics success for businesses that rely on number-crunching. There's also the matter of effective database management, which is a complicated pursuit with a lot of moving pieces.

Managing corporate data effectively
According to Smart Data Collective, there's a lot more to effective database management than merely maintaining high levels of quality. Timo Elliott of SAP BusinessObjects told the news source that meeting strict standards for data security is a must, especially in this harsh cyber-climate where threatening agents lurk.

"Data quality is just part of governance," Elliott said. "Another is compliance and security. Today, people may have been sold a vision that big data is a 'big bucket' that they can analyze in the hope of finding some great nugget of business insight. But that data still has to have a series of compliance rules around it - who can access it, how long can you keep it, what is the archive strategy, etc."

Compliance and data security are tricky areas because there are different standards governing them worldwide. Companies need to be aware of the rapidly evolving standards in various countries and markets.

Meeting tough global standards
As global guidelines for data compliance change over time, it can be difficult for companies to keep up. According to Infosecurity Magazine, it's important that data governance officials take steps to learn the data protection protocols in every area that they do business. There's a strong case for going the extra mile to protect customer and citizen data.

Compliance in the current business landscape means a lot of things. It requires observing the changing regulatory landscape carefully, understanding the role of encryption in protecting data and also knowing the importance of access controls. By guarding information carefully, business leaders can develop policy frameworks for their data that are both robust and practical.

Data quality is important, but security and compliance are equally vital. If they can understand the full scope of their database management plans, companies can put themselves in position to get ahead.