Data Governance Blog

Has your ability to manage risk scaled with your systems?

Funny thing about large data systems, everyone knows the benefits scale due to the application of technology, but many companies turn a blind eye to the fact that so do the risks. Complacency and arrogance (C&A) team up to teach us occasional lessons to learn from, and if the screw-up in grand enough it may even get passed on in college texts.

Often companies and software teams get caught up in their own successes. That opens the doors for C&A to gain entry and take down what everyone worked so hard to create and maintain. We have seen it time and again in the physical world, sometimes on a grand scale such as the Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters, or something less dramatic like a fender bender.

In the information technology realm, the failure may come in the form a data breach where the loss of 1-million customer records can cost upwards of $3 billion. Or perhaps an error on the financials of several million dollars because an ETL process did not handle a change to the product codes correctly and no one noticed … for three months!

At the end of the day, we must address the fact our systems are growing in complexity and elevating risks exponentially. Many firms are reaching the point where the margin of error between unbridled success, and unprecedented failure has become very thin. So the question becomes, “how long are you willing to keep complacency and arrogance on the payroll?”