IBM says firms are facing revenue losses and fines as a result
of not keeping track of their information.
IBM research among 300 top global companies showed that firms
needed to
keep a better inventory of their data to avoid problems and get
better value from their business information.
According to the 2008 Metadata Market Survey, risk mitigation
and data governance are key areas to be addressed in new projects
to enable
better data tracking through the use of metadata (information
about information).
Metadata describes data by relating key business and technical
information to it, making it possible to index, govern and use
valuable corporate information.
Respondents surveyed said that failure to address the problem of
better managing their metadata will result in increased costs to
manage and support their business operations, and additional risk
exposure.
The growing significance of this problem is attributed to
increasing operational complexities, loss of customer revenue and
potential fines for non-compliance with state and government
regulations.
The survey found that 67% of respondents said that data
governance and data stewardship issues were among the top three
metadata-related issues they were struggling with.
But 45% do not yet have a data governance council or data
governance project underway. In addition, 80% said they are
struggling with other information-related issues such as
documenting business metadata.