A Data Governance Maturity Assessment: A Case Study of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Nowadays, data has become important and influences the decision-making process on government and business sectors. Data governance strategy should not be underestimated because it increases the value of data and minimize data-related cost and risk. The data governance concept promotes the accomplishment of organizational objectives by developing and implementing an appropriate strategy for processing data in perfect and secure manner. This study aims to assess the maturity of data governance for Saudi sectors by design a framework and using it to measure whether the data governance have been applied or not. To do so, we have designed a questionnaire based on five criteria for assessing the current state of data governance implementation which are: policies and standards of data management, data quality, risk of poor data quality, cost of data correction, and data security. The questionnaire was then distributed to the employees in the IT department or who are related to data management or data security in Saudi sectors either government or private. The results show that approximately 48% of the respondents stated that they have a data governance committee in the sectors in which they work. Also, 55% of the respondents indicated that there are legislation and regulations for data governance in the sectors, as well as for making data available. Moreover, 42% from the respondents stated that their organizations have policies and procedures to enforce data management