The Role of Data Governance in Identity Resolution

One of the most important aspects of Master Data Management is identifying when two records (whether they be customer, product, or some other key entity instance) actually represent the same real-world item. In order to make this work, you obviously need some sophisticated tools. But you also need the ability to make decisions (and thus have designated decision makers) in order to identify what attributes must be used, the quality needed for those attributes, what sources can be used to enhance the data, and so forth. And who makes those decisions? The answer, at least in a company with a robust Data Governance function, is the data stewards, with their efforts coordinated by Data Governance. This presentation explains the basics of how identity resolution works, and the key roles that Data Governance plays in reaching decisions about what data to use and what quality is needed.

You will learn:

They key processes in identity resolution
How to get to the identifying attributes using Data Governance techniques
Processes for examining the quality and reliability of the available data
How decisions get made and documented
How to extend this information to determining enterprise-wide reference data

David Plotkin is the Global Head of Data Stewardship for a large insurance company, working in Enterprise Data Solutions. He is responsible for rolling out data stewardship as part of an overall Data Governance and Data Management effort. This includes creating a stewardship strategy, training, and leading the stewardship community, as well as specifying the requirements for the data stewardship tool suite (Collibra and IBM). He has previously been a consultant for EMC, working on data quality, data governance and master data management engagements at client companies. He has also previously managed Data Governance at an insurance company and managed data quality at two large banks. He has been working with data governance, data modeling, metadata and data quality for over 25 years. He is a popular speaker at DAMA chapters and conferences, and serves as a subject matter expert on many topics around metadata, data governance, and data quality.