Defensive Versus Offensive Data Strategies

Data is never perfect. The key question for data practitioners should be ‘Is it good enough’ for the problem to be addressed’? Each analytics situation requires its own strategy with respect to the quality of data being fed and the time/cost it requires to incrementally improve the quality. Wendy Zhang had multiple hats at different companies as a data governance lead and data analytics lead. Wendy had the luxury of building a data governance team from scratch at Wells Fargo and now works with a consulting organization helping with data governance and analytics strategies.

Wendy also believes that organizations may need defensive or offensive strategies depending on their situation. If a financial organization needs to comply with regulatory mandates, a defensive strategy may be best. On the other hand, a mature data-capable organization will be best served with offensive strategies.