Business and data glossary management is a rarefied term. However, according to research from data professionals—after years of commitment and collaboration—your business needs it. Otherwise, you could be in for some unpleasant surprises.
Data Glossary Management Lets You Know What’s Happening
Businesses today must track and understand everything that’s happening from the top of the conversion funnel to the bottom line of finance. It’s the data everyone needs—and must trust—to grow in a competitive arena.
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Consider These Examples
Businesses are made up of various activities, a diverse workforce, and multiple departments. Each aspect of a business understands the company from a different perspective. Additionally, some businesses go through mergers and acquisitions, wherein two entirely different cultures merge into one.
In each of these situations, the various entities within a business might use different business vocabularies, calling the same thing by different names. Nonetheless, everyone is supposed to work together to achieve common goals.
Without a common business and data glossary, things might just fall apart. This is because employees cannot seamlessly communicate with each other about the business’s data.
Moreover, in the absence of a business and data glossary, the communication system remains complicated. This can result in a series of misunderstandings, errors, rework, and unnecessary overhead costs.
A Business and Data Glossary Ensures Consistency
On the other hand, a common business and data glossary acts as a source of coherence. However, it’s not just limited to an enterprise’s data vocabulary. It also ensures consistency across the entire array of business terms.
It Connects Business Process and Information Technology
Sound data management fills the gap between business processes and IT activities. This is because a business and data glossary allows for the understanding of fundamental metadata related to business terms and their connection to other information. In this way, a business glossary fills in the gaps and allows for seamless communications. This benefits the entire organization.
A data glossary incorporates insights about an organization’s information resources and arranges them in a straightforward and easy-to-understand layout. Further, glossaries connect business and technical experts by offering clear definitions and equivalent terms. Also, the rest of the workforce uses it daily in a variety of frameworks, reports, and procedures.
Finally, it identifies the original proprietors of data while connecting everyone through a central glossary management system. Subsequently, common data definitions make data sources transparent. As a result, users can independently identify the correct data for their purposes.
Develop an Integrated Search System with Shared Data Culture
The biggest driver of an organized business data glossary is its ability to centralize reference points. In fact, the glossary builds seamless relationships across the organization in terms of business terms and data governance entities. With an integrated search facility, anyone can look for a business’s data definitions, along with synonyms, technical metadata, and the significance of a particular term.
For example, the term “Name” in HR departments could mean last name, full name, or first name. However, if the term “Name” is defined in the company’s data glossary, everyone in the organization would use the term in a uniform fashion. Therefore, the system would ensure consistency while reducing the chance of errors.
Enjoy a Better Understanding of Business Terms
We might associate a business term with a certain number of key performance indicators (KPI’s) and other technical implications. A centralized data glossary can help an organization to understand its own data as well as that data’s underlying implications.
Moreover, it’s a compliance-friendly approach, as it helps business owners make quick decisions, since every member of the team understands the company’s business terms in the same fashion. Eventually, every member would be able to effectively manage and apply data to the same meaningful values within their respective functional genres.
A Business and Data Glossary Allows for a Seamless Workflow
Businesses might somehow establish relationships among uncoordinated data using alternatives, but that would be of no use if the data itself wasn’t credible. Data is only useful if it’s authentic and correct. And if the source of the data is not traceable, that data is essentially useless. Ultimately, this affects the overall workflow of the company’s projects.
Business data glossary management is a quick way to establish credible traceability for your company’s data. If you implement it correctly, a typical business data glossary uses mind maps or tabular reports to verify relationships within the data.
This would give you, as the business owner, the ability to measure the effect of any data. Additionally, you could also verify its quality by observing fluid communications between the data owner and the data consumer. This will form a fluent workflow and project management system within your organization.
Create Your Business and Data Glossary Today
With a business data glossary in your company, you will be able to implement a proper data-based governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) approach in your organization without worrying about the credibility of your data. And with coherence in your company’s business terms, you can unify your workforce at the root level.
Naturally, you need the right software solution to achieve this ideal state. You need a proper data governance system to devise a comprehensive business and data glossary. This system should be user-friendly, flexible, and upgradable as your company’s needs change. So, have you considered implementing a business data glossary in your organization yet?
