If roles and responsibilities define who does the work of governance, then processes define how that work is carried out. Without clear processes, even the best-intentioned teams fall back into siloed habits. Policies drift, definitions diverge and data quality erodes.
The good news is that governance processes are well established. When consistently applied, they become the engine of trust, making it possible for organizations to use, share and scale data with confidence.
Levels of governance
Governance isn’t one-size-fits-all. It applies at different levels of an organization, depending on scope and impact:
Enterprise level: Policies and standards applied to data shared across the whole organization, such as customer master data or enterprise-wide definitions
Divisional level: Rules governing data shared across multiple business units or applications. For example, customer data specific to a regional division
Business unit level: Processes tailored to data used exclusively within one function, like a marketing department or R&D team
Clear processes at each level ensure alignment. Without them, enterprises risk misalignment and duplication, as different groups define and manage the same data in different ways.
