Flexible data management is a method that involves establishing and maintaining an information structure that can be adapted to business requirements. This allows companies to better adapt and respond to changes in the business environment, enhance access to information and assist in decision-making with the most current and accurate information.
The necessity for flexibility is becoming increasingly essential as companies struggle to keep up with the ever-changing business environment. The old adage that the only constant is change holds true in modern organizations, and if a company’s information infrastructure isn’t up to date with changing requirements and strategic objectives the infrastructure will soon become obsolete.
Flexibility is essential for businesses to make use of their existing and future information assets effectively to gain competitive advantage. This can be done by implementing new methods of monitoring the health and integrity of data pipelines as well as individual data pieces (known collectively as “data observability”) which aid in identifying and address issues before they affect the quality of data or data security. This approach offers a proactive, automated method of managing data that minimizes the need for human intervention and speeds problem-solving.
Another benefit of a flexible approach to managing data is that it makes it easier for different teams to share and access information. Marketing may track and remediate risk in a different way than IT. However, both approaches can be combined into a single report that is simple to read and communicated to the leadership of the organization. This is possible with tools like business glossaries, data federation and metadata-driven information dictionaries.