MDM to present at DAMA SA event – highlights the importance of the Business Data Glossary

A business glossary defines the common terms used for reporting, and elsewhere in business.  This helps to ensure that decision makers, and developers, have a consistent understanding of what they are looking at — a crucial issue for Chief Data Officers.  Master Data Management will shed light on this at the South African Data Management Community (DAMA-SA) events taking place in Cape Town on Thursday, 18 February 2016 and in Johannesburg on Wednesday, 16 March 2016.  Gary Allemann, MD at Master Data Management will highlight the importance of the Business Data Glossary and explore some of the international trends affecting the glossary.  He will also deliver a short demonstration of leading Data Governance platform, Collibra.

“The renewed interest in the business glossary is being driven by a host of factors. These include the regulatory reporting imperative for the financial services industry, the opportunities offered by the principles of data driven decision making and big data, and the simple desire to reduce IT operating costs by ensuring a better understanding of how information flows between, and is used by, different systems,” says Allemann.

Last year, DAMA-SA ran a number of surveys to understand how to better serve the needs of the IT community. One finding was that professionals are interested in understanding how technology can support critical data management capabilities – such as the glossary.

According to DAMA-SA Head, Howard Diesel, “The business glossary is but one piece of the information puzzle. Our members want to understand how it can be placed in context with various other information assets. What is the term used for? What are the decision making processes to change it? Does the same term mean alternative things in varying environments, or has it changed over time? In many environments this requires engaging with hundreds of people and placing the thousands of terms into business context.”

Auditors, analysts and decision makers need to be able to quickly trace the source of a report, understand how a calculation was derived or understand how changing a term or a calculation will affect other reports, systems or processes. This context, and the governance around it, is what converts the business glossary from a simple list of terms into an actionable business asset.

The DAMA events will demonstrate how companies from around the world are using Collibra to govern their data and leveraging the business glossary to reduce risk, cut costs and meet compliance goals.

“The new DAMA leadership are making a concerted effort to provide value to members. As a DAMA-SA member since inception, we are happy to support these efforts to create a relevant and inclusive forum for the information management community,’ concludes Allemann.

You can register for the Cape Town DAMA event here: bit.ly/1P8wa5I

For the Johannesburg DAMA event register here: bit.ly/1X56eeh