Data management is the practice of collecting, storing, organizing, securing, and using data in a secure, efficient, and cost-effective manner. It involves all disciplines related to handling data as a valuable resource. The goal of data management is to help people, organizations, and connected things make better-informed business decisions, improve marketing campaigns, optimize business operations, and reduce costs, all with the goal of increasing revenue and profits.
Topics in data management include data governance, data architecture, data modeling and design, database and storage management, data security, reference and master data, and more. Data management systems are built on data management platforms and can include databases, data lakes and data warehouses, big data management systems, data analytics, and more.
Effective data management is a crucial piece of deploying the IT infrastructure of an organization. The data management process includes a combination of different functions that collectively aim to make sure the data in corporate systems is accurate, available, and accessible. Most of the required work is done by IT and data management teams, but business users typically also participate in some parts of the process to ensure that the data meets their needs and to get them on board with policies governing its use.
Data management is important because data is considered to be a valuable resource for modern organizations. With access to large volumes and different data types, organizations invest significantly in data storage and management infrastructure. They use data management systems to run business intelligence and data analytics operations more efficiently.
The practice of data management spans the collection and distribution of high-quality data, and the areas of focus for data management include data governance, data architecture, data modeling and design, database and storage management, data security, reference and master data, and more.
