5 Essential Components of a Data Strategy

Building a comprehensive data strategy for your organization can be a daunting task. Where do you start, and how do you put all the proper pieces in place for a suitable strategy to bring value to your company from data? The key is to ensure that the strategy focuses on the strengths and needs of the individual company.

A data strategy is “a roadmap and plan to identify what to do with a company’s data and to support accessing, sharing and managing the content,” says Evan Levy. In identifying and referencing content, look for subject area and data element names/descriptions, content type (structured, unstructured, semi-structured) and metadata. This component also includes the tools and methods to enable and automate the collection, publishing and managing content details as well as the business and technical-level details.

The key to providing and sharing data between systems is to determine packaging (files, transactions, data streams, etc.), content and formatting (values, formats, etc.) and package metadata details (location, origin, availability, changes, etc.). This component also defines methods to allow data availability, such as support for internally and externally delivered content, production support and change control (errors, fixes, versions, etc.) and interface and access to allow data delivery.