Poor data mastery impacting ability to drive value from data

Key findings:

• On average 42% of respondents do not have a data management strategy in place
• Only 4 in 10 are highly confident in their ability to manage, secure data and use their data responsibly
• Only 35% are highly confident they can manage data to generate meaningful insights
• Key departments are still not accepting both accountability and responsibility for data management
• Data security protocols are often not understood, or abided by

Collective effort needed

When it comes to looking at who is accountable for securing data, there seems to be confusion about who is meant to take the lead.  For example, while nearly half of all finance and IT decision makers say they are accountable for securing data within their organisation, only a third of those who typically use data – marketing and HR – revealed they take accountability.

Mind the gap

While 53% of EMEA leaders surveyed believe that the secure management of data is very important to reputational risk, the study shows there are many key internal behaviours that compromise trust. 

One-quarter say that the biggest concern around data security inside the organisation is low attention to data confidentiality, followed by weak controls on who can access data (24%), a willingness to manage data through mobile devices or social platforms (23%), and use of untrusted devices and connections (23%).

Around one fifth of respondents (22%) also say that top behaviours compromising their trust in how data is managed include: blindness on how data is supposed to be used; the misuse of critical data; and disregard for applicable data regulations.

Driving change

Countering these behavioural issues, those with data management strategies in place are 8% more likely to use password protected documents, 10% more likely to have access to secure on-premises databases, and 9% more likely to use data on trusted devices.

When it comes to the key data and security priorities companies have for the year ahead and actions being taken to promote the responsible use of data, enforcing better controls and procedures, as well as training and workshops to mix people from different lines of business together ranked highly. Organisations are also turning to technologies companies for help across the spectrum of data mastery including accelerating the move to cloud for enhanced security performance (30%), turning to AI and machine learning to drive actionable insights from data (26%), and machine learning capabilities to self-patch and secure data (25%).