All I Want for Christmas is... HIGH-QUALITY DATA Bennett Falck, Head of Development

In the post- big data age, the technical community has largely solved storage and scalability concerns. There are certainly more inroads to be made, processes to speed up, models to be trained, and analysis to be done, but functionally we have caught up with the majority of big data demand. Where business leaders have begun to turn is the quality of the data being brought in.

Companies often scale their data pipelines while keeping data consistency at the back of their minds, rather than at the forefront. We at Green Cabbage have seen this a number of times with our clients’ data, where data points are captured inconsistently and at odds with reality. This risks all data work being an exercise in futility. Imagine trying to decipher the picture a puzzle was supposed to be with a third of the pieces missing and another third turned the wrong way. Anyone would have a difficult time knowing what the picture was and could even decide on the wrong picture. In a business context, making decisions based on incorrect assumptions can have catastrophic consequences. The enablement of data professionals is essential in any organization.

The data world has experienced a few changes over the last decade for the “hottest” job title. First it was Data Analyst. After that, it turned to Data Scientist. Currently, it’s Data Engineer. In fact, DICE’s 2020 Tech Job Report stated that the Data Engineer job title grew 50% YoY.1 We believe that the next step in this progression is data governance. There are several job titles under this umbrella, but all are centered around the idea of governing “the appropriate behavior in the valuation, creation, consumption, and control of data and analytics.”2 What this definition boils down to is ensuring that the data being captured is accurate, precise, and secure.

Organizations world-wide are realizing that it’s not the quantity of data that matters, it’s the quality. There is important work to be done still in the analytics, data science, and data engineering spaces, but these are all impossible without a strong data governance team. Now is the time to ensure that your organization’s data is trustworthy, or risk being left behind by competitors.

Green Cabbage has taken a similar road. We have a massive dataset of indirect tech, human capital, and clinical data, amongst data from other categories, all about suppliers, pricing, terms & conditions, and market trends. However, without our data governance team ensuring our data is clean and accurate, we would not be successful in empowering our clients to achieve savings and take control over their procurement processes.

This Christmas, be a little extra kind to your data governance people, they may be underappreciated. Happy Holidays from Green Cabbage