NAPERVILLE, Ill., Sept. 12, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Infogix, a leading provider of data management tools, today identified pertinent metadata management trends that will have large-scale effects on IT and business departments globally.
In an era of big data and data sprawl, organizations are increasingly using metadata to identify, classify and gain insights from critical data. Trends in metadata are not just about how it's mined, but how it's used and managed. "The metadata management market is heating up as forward-thinking organizations realize how critical metadata is to enhance organizational processes, increase revenue and garner a competitive advantage," said Emily Washington, executive vice president, product management, at Infogix. "Businesses that want to stay at the forefront of their industry will leverage metadata to gain a handle on their data environments."
To keep up-to-date, metadata management experts at Infogix identified five trends that will have a major impact on data-driven businesses:
Business-Focused Metadata Initiatives
As business strategy execution approaches continue to evolve, individuals across the entire enterprise are working together to leverage data to gain insights that will give them a leading edge in all areas of their organization. We continue to uncover new ways to tap into metadata and enable any role within the organization to confirm data is trusted and fit for purpose. With added business context, technical metadata unlocks clarity in how to effectively leverage data. There has been a shift from IT organizations driving technical metadata programs to investment in data governance teams that are business-oriented, and who working alongside technology, ensure business requirements are met. Data catalogs and business glossaries continue to grow in use, which requires significant automation and ease of use in order to cater to a broad range of data users across the organization.
Crucial Prioritizing of Data Quality Execution
Data quality initiatives, whether at an enterprise level or within individual business processes, have not always been directly linked to metadata initiatives. With metadata usage more widely adopted, and amplified as we uncover more insights metadata can provide, measuring data quality is no longer nice to have to strengthen context. Data quality is crucial to establishing trust in critical data assets impacting business goals and objectives. Documenting data quality standards in a catalog is the first step. However, executing those standards in operational environments continues to be a challenge. As teams collaborate on establishing ownership and accountability of data and its quality, enabling users across the organization to automate quality standards is a top priority.
The Increasing Importance of Metadata in Data Privacy
While data privacy is a hot topic, as is the subject of countless regulations such as GDPR, TRIM, and CCPA, the very definition of "data privacy" is a moving target. So, too, are the actions businesses must take to protect data from unauthorized access, usage or dissemination. Metadata is increasingly critical to data privacy efforts, as it identifies data stakeholders, what constitutes PII, the processes required to protect it (e.g., confined data, masked data, etc.) and mitigate compliance risk. By aggregating metadata and building analytical models, organizations can precisely define and identify the data that needs to stay private, assuring sensitive information is protected.
Operationalizing Metadata Management
Traditionally, organizations harvested technical metadata from various sources and stored this data in a central repository, awaiting the day when it might be used. As data volumes grow at lightning speeds, this approach is neither sustainable nor practical. Due to a stronger understanding of how metadata can be leveraged, requirements are much more closely aligned with technology needs than in the past. Metadata can become stale very quickly as data sources change. Just as it is necessary to collect metadata, it is equally important to refresh metadata and monitor trends over time. By automating metadata collection, quality metrics, and crowdsourcing business context amongst users, metadata becomes a living source of valuable information.
Applying Machine Learning and AI to Monetize Metadata
Businesses increasingly recognize the value of metadata and how it might be used for data monetization to get ahead of the competition and increase value for stakeholders. Internally, turning data insights into action means lower operating costs, increased speed to market and greater productivity. Externally, it means identifying new revenue stream opportunities. By integrating metadata through advanced analytical techniques that leverage machine learning and other forms of artificial intelligence (AI), organizations add value to data with previously untapped insights and business intelligence.
"If organizations want to foster successful analytics projects, improve operational efficiency and expand profits in 2019 and beyond they will increasingly have to rely on their metadata to manage and leverage data as an enterprise asset," said Washington. "Therefore, the tools and techniques enterprises employ to manage their metadata must deliver an all-inclusive, and true view of the organization's data landscape."
To learn more about Infogix, visit http://www.infogix.com or @infogix.
About Infogix, Inc.
In our fourth decade as an industry pioneer, Infogix continues to provide large and mid-market companies around the globe with a broad range of integrated and configurable tools to govern, manage and use data. From operations and the office of data to sales, from product and customer service to marketing—users across the entire organization rely on our software to remove barriers to data access, accelerate time to insight, increase operational efficiency and confidently trust business decisions. Our best in class retention rate is proof of our customer-centric focus as we partner with them to thrive in today's data-driven economy. To learn more visit http://www.infogix.com or @Infogix.
SOURCE Infogix
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