Most organisations think they’re doing data governance. The truth is, they’re just ticking boxes, and it’s costing them.

 

The Terms and Conditions Applied series cuts through the noise surrounding data governance with straightforward, practical insight into why governance efforts often stall and what to do differently. Designed for business and technical audiences alike, the series offers:

 

  • Practical strategies for evolving governance from tick-box compliance to a scalable, value-driven capability.
  • Clarity on the often-misunderstood roles of metadata management and MDM in a complete governance framework.
  • A blueprint for turning proof of concept efforts into robust, scalable governance solutions.
  • Guidance on integrating governance seamlessly into enterprise-wide data strategies.
  • A forward-looking view of how AI, automation, and real-time governance are reshaping the landscape.

 

Over eight instalments, Terms and Conditions Applied challenges conventional thinking and provides actionable guidance drawn from real-world experience. The goal? To help organisations turn governance from an overhead into a genuine competitive advantage.

The Weak Link That Is Quietly Slowing You Down

 

This is the first in a new series on data governance starting with the uncomfortable truth at the heart of it: governance is often the weak link quietly slowing down your data efforts. It’s not that it’s missing, it’s that it’s fragmented, treated as overhead, or added too late to make a difference. At Telefónica Tech, we see a recurring pattern; businesses know data governance matters but struggle to make it land. This series aims to unpack why, and more importantly, what to do about it. Identifying these weaknesses is just the start. Throughout this series, we’ll break down each of these challenges and show how to transform governance from a persistent problem into a competitive advantage.

 

Let’s start with the obvious… governance isn’t exciting. It doesn’t sell new features, generate press, or promise a 10x ROI in six months. But neglecting it creates drag operationally, commercially, and strategically.

 

Why governance struggles to gain traction

Most governance efforts fail not because the business doesn’t care, but because:

  • The benefits are abstract
  • The frameworks are disconnected from day-to-day work
  • The ownership is unclear, or worse, avoided
  • The value is hard to measure

 

Gartner reported in 2023, that 80% of data governance initiatives are abandoned or re-scoped within 18 months due to lack of tangible impact. Not lack of effort – lack of impact.

 

We’ve all heard the symptoms:

  • “We don’t know who owns the data”
  • “Everyone has a different number for the same KPI”
  • “Analytics takes too long and nobody trusts the output”
  • “Compliance is manual and last-minute”

 

Governance often enters too late where it appears after a breach, an audit, or a failed project. By then, it’s reactive firefighting, not strategic enablement.

 

Frameworks vs. impact

Most governance initiatives begin with a framework. That’s not the problem. The problem is when frameworks are treated as the outcome. Policies are written; stewards are assigned. SharePoint folders multiply, but nobody uses them.

 

That’s because frameworks don’t fix root causes on their own. You still need:

  • Trust in the data itself
  • Clarity on who is responsible, and what that responsibility means
  • Tools that make governance a by-product of doing the job and not an extra admin task

 

Without those things, frameworks become shelf ware.

 

PoCs are a start but are not a strategy

One response we often see is the governance proof of concept (PoC) where a small team trials a metadata tool on an often-undefined use case. Maybe they scan a data source or classify a handful of tables and then they get excited about lineage diagrams.

 

PoCs are useful as they build momentum and uncover problems. But they are not governance. They are a demo.

 

The risk is thinking you’ve “done” governance because one domain in Finance has decent metadata. The rest of the estate? Still tribal knowledge and blind spots.

 

To turn a PoC into a foundation, you need a route forward:

  • Define what “good” looks like across domains
  • Build in ownership from day one
  • Use automation to avoid the trap of governance becoming manual overhead

 

That means moving from showcase to strategy.

 

What’s at stake

When governance is weak, the effects aren’t just technical, they’re commercial.

  • A 2022 Forrester study found that poor data quality costs companies on average 15–25% of their revenue
  • IBM has estimated the cost of bad data in the US economy alone at over $3 trillion annually
  • Regulatory fines aside, the internal cost of rework, duplicated effort, and missed opportunities is rarely tracked but always felt

 

On the flip side, good governance enables:

  • Faster project delivery because you’re not stuck in data discovery
  • Better reporting because definitions are agreed
  • Stronger compliance because access is controlled and auditable
  • Higher trust in data which increases adoption of analytics and AI

 

But most of all, it gives leaders confidence in the data they use to make decisions.

 

A practical shift in mindset

The organisations we see succeeding treat governance as a capability, not a checklist. It’s integrated into how they build data products, how they design processes, and how they measure success.

 

It’s not about gold-plating a policy but about making sure the right people have access to the right data at the right time and with enough context to trust it.

 

Governance, done well, doesn’t slow things down. It removes the friction that already exists but goes unnamed.

 

What’s next

In the next instalment, we’ll break down where tools like Microsoft Purview fit (and where they don’t!). We’ll clarify the difference between metadata management, MDM, and governance, and why getting that distinction right matters if you want to scale.

 

But before you jump to tools, start by asking a few uncomfortable questions:

  • Who owns your core datasets, and do they know?
  • How do you decide who gets access to sensitive data?
  • Do your analysts spend more time finding data or using it?

 

If those answers are fuzzy, it’s not a technology issue. It’s a governance issue. The truth is many organisations are unknowingly building their data initiatives on weak foundations. Understanding the problem is only the first step. Throughout this series, we’ll explore how to transform governance from an afterthought into a competitive advantage, starting with the right tools, frameworks, and approaches. Next, we’ll look at how different technologies fit into a broader governance strategy and why some commonly used tools may be part of the problem.

 

Follow along over the coming weeks as we tackle the myths, gaps, and practical solutions for building real, operational governance into your data strategy.

 

#DataGovernance #Metadata #Purview #Compliance #Analytics #TelefónicaTech #TermsAndConditionsApplied

Authored by