To achieve good data
governance, you need a
data quality network
‘Good data governance’ can mean different things to
different industries. Where all companies are usually
aligned, however, is that they want good quality
data. Unfortunately, the path to getting it is often
resource-intensive.
With this in mind, it’s surprising that there is very
little consistency in how we determine what data
is ‘good quality’, and what is ‘bad quality’. Whilst
the automotive industry can define what a safe,
efficient car looks like, and the electronics industry
can define how it passes a quality controlled device,
we are missing an industry standard for data. Given
the ever-growing role data plays in making critical
business decisions, not addressing this challenge
has the potential to undermine our business
insights.
The universal problems with data
quality
Right now, every business and government
organisation is processing and cleaning their data
differently, with unique perspectives on what ‘good
data’ looks like.
The unspoken truth here is that despite our best
efforts, the way organisations process data right
now involves a considerable workforce, is vulnerable
to human error, and involves variable internal
quality standards that are not always fit for purpose.
Our experience in working with companies across
multiple industries has shown us that this problem
is consistent. With the right technology, it can
be resolved. In today’s world, data quality issues
originate right at the start of the life cycle, when
data is shared between businesses. Addressing
the challenge of sharing within a business’s data
network is the key to resolving data quality issues.
The new world of data quality
To ensure data is shared in a quality assured way,
we need a collaboration tool to bridge between
the various stakeholders in a data network,
one designed to standardise the transfer of
information.
This tool can guarantee that all information shared
between businesses in the network meets a
uniform quality standard, by addressing data quality
at the point of data transfer. By creating a metadata
log listing the provenance and validation applied to
that data, stakeholders can use that log to assess
data quality, even if they are viewing data from a
different department or organisation.
The benefits of a network
The outcome of this tool is called a Data Quality
Network (DQN): a data layer where all datasets
in the network have a unique ID for every row,
which lists the provenance and validation applied
to it. Each unique ID is connected to a DQN
Certificate containing the data source, upload date,
validation method, and testing applied to the row
of data. These quality metrics support good data
governance.
This DQN infrastructure makes it easier than ever
to request or send data to your stakeholders with
a DQN ID attached. Storing quality metrics in this
way allows trusted business teams in your network
to access the information they need to quality
assess data quickly, no matter which stakeholder
in the network that data came from. The result is a
reduction of up to 10x in the amount of time taken
to validate data.
The journey to a DQN
Organisations looking to create a DQN to support
data governance are likely to already have access to
a lot of the information captured within a DQN ID,
whether collected through an API or the purchase of
registered data. However, many are not recording
this in a DQN ID. To solve this, our team built a tool
called gather360 - the world’s first DQN provider.
This simple, no-code tool for business teams
automates the process to create a DQN. With a few
clicks, gather360 automatically maps and validates
all data sources uploaded into your business to
match the criteria you set, meaning you can request
information that is pre-validated according to your
governance needs. gather360 adds a DQN ID to
each row of data uploaded before it reaches your
data warehouse, so whenever you’re moving data
between organisations in your network, you have
a DQN ID built-in which data analysts can query
whenever they need to.
Empowering business teams, not IT
gather360 is designed for the business user, not the
IT team. It’s an intuitive, secure, cloud-based tool
that integrates easily with existing data systems
and legacy infrastructures. By acting as the ‘bridge’
to share data between stakeholders, business
teams using gather360 have the opportunity to add
significant additional value to their data.
In addition to supporting data validation, the tool
also enables the enrichment of data with quality
assured add-ons from trusted nodes as you import.
gather360 can also bridge the gap between legacy
systems with consolidation functionality and offers a
growing marketplace of data ‘recipe’ suggestions that
support regulatory compliance requirements such as
ESG.
Creating a tool which focuses on the data network
has enabled us to offer a solution which supports
data quality and good governance across every
organisation, bringing us one step closer to an
industry standard for data. With a DQN, companies
are empowered to fuel their business insights with
good quality data assessed to their governance
requirements, supporting your data governance
objectives. If you’re interested in learning more, you
can read more about gather360’s features here.
How Data Quality Networks support
Asset Managers with MiFID2
Investment advisers who thus far have resisted
ESG investing now have to start taking it into
consideration due to the incoming MiFID2
legislations.
Transparency clauses mean advisers will need to
consider the extent to which sustainability risks
are integrated into investment decisions and an
assessment of the likely impacts of sustainability
risk on client returns. So, even advisers without
ESG-interested clients will still need to demonstrate
knowledge of ESG and a process that shows how
ESG funds are identified, evaluated, selected and
compared.
gather360 can support asset managers to:
• Ensure that the ESG data shared with advisers,
investors and the market is appropriate,
statistically accurate and granular.
• Create proprietary ESG reporting frameworks for
portfolio companies, which in turn will improve
company ESG market ratings and risk profiles.
• Create proprietary ESG rating indices.
• Enhance their own ESG profiles to win more
Institutional business.
• Monetise their ESG data.
How Data Quality Networks support
companies with ESG
As ESG data requirements become more complex,
the administrative burden is growing for businesses.
And, as interest in the ‘S’ and the ‘G’ increases, their
costs and risk exposure is increasing too.
The process of gathering and checking the volume
and diversity of data from across a business can
weigh heavily on the ESG lead. There are challenges
in blending it with external data, formatting it for
each user’s requirements and ensuring that the
business can defend each dataset if challenged.
This situation will only get more challenging, as
investors and values-led consumers seek more and
more granularity of the data from large corporates,
and mid-cap or SME businesses are challenged to
present ESG performance to satisfy lending criteria.
Many try to solve the problem by focusing on the
outputs - reports, benchmarks and metrics. We
believe that a more radical rethink is required,
directing the focus further upstream, to redefine the
data flow required to support delivery. We were able
to design our award-winning gather360 data tool to
address the key challenges at each stage of the data
collection process.
gather360 enables ESG data suppliers, internal and
external, to test and correct data before it’s provided,
slashing the time and cost of checking and cross-
referencing. We are developing a recipe for the EU
taxonomy to support teams in determining what
information to collect and how to gather it efficiently.
Clients across multiple sectors already
use gather360 to:
• Easily source and assimilate relevant data and
tailor reports for business-critical projects.
• Source and format relevant data for each
stakeholder or investor group.
• Generate reports to access new ESG-aligned
loans with a lower interest rate.
• Monetise data: packaging and selling ESG data
sets.
• Get ahead of competitors by proactively
preparing regulatory infrastructure for future
compliance and reporting requirements.
• Dramatically improve ESG ratings and risk profiles
by providing a detailed and accurate view of ESG
performance to rating agencies.
• Power existing ESG tools and technologies with
statistically accurate data.
Are you working on ESG compliance? Follow
our gather360 Innovation Lab workshops to
learn how data quality networks can support
EU taxonomy compliance.