While many business intelligence companies offer data management services, it can sometimes be difficult to understand what, exactly, data management includes.

In this article, we discuss the 6 primary components of data management.

6 Components of Data Management

While each data management service provider presents data management according to the platforms and expertise they use, there are six main components included in most data management.

1. Collecting Data

The first part of data management is the collection of data. This includes retrieving information from a variety of disparate sources. This is important because, for most companies, data can reside in a wide range of places, such as databases, text files, emails, unconnected systems, and more.

This part of the data management process is important because most companies lacking proper data management usually have incompatible data sets, data inconsistencies, or even data quality problems that may hinder their business intelligence. With a properly executed data management system, this information can be automatically collected

2. Processing and Organizing Data

After data is collected, it needs to be processed and organized. The goal of this part of data management is to process data and combine it to present unified results.

Processing and organizing data are important because it helps to present a clearer and more accurate picture of the data. By combining information from different data sets, helping to reveal insights that can help drive data-backed business decisions.

3. Securing Data

Another goal of data management is securing data internally and externally. This is becoming increasingly important as digital threats continue to present challenges to businesses of all sizes. Data security measures include considerations internally and externally, including encryption, backup and recovery measures, data governance, security processes, and more. 

4. Storing Data

Once data is collected and processed, it must be accessible by databases and interfaces as well as the end-users and applications that access that data. Data must be stored in a secure way that allows designated access by those individuals and applications that need it.

5. Using Data

Finally, data needs to be able to be presented in a usable way. This usually includes an interface and/or data visualizations that provide reporting tools to stakeholders who can use the data to make strategic business decisions. It also includes applications or other systems being able to access data to perform their designated tasks.

6. Ongoing Data Management

After a data management system is in place, there are ongoing data management services that help to keep the system running smoothly and securely. This includes identifying and resolving threats or challenges to the system, managing memory and storage resources, making changes to the database as needed as data sources continue to evolve, and optimizing resources as needed to ensure fast and reliable performance.

Learn More About Data Management

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