Data Intelligence

Zeenea Data Governance Framework | S01-E04 – SWOT Analysis

Actian Corporation

May 9, 2021

episode 4- SWOT analysis cover

This is the fourth episode of our series “The Zeenea Effective Data Governance Framework”. Split into three seasons, this first part will focus on Alignment: understanding the context, finding the right people, and preparing an action plan for your data-driven journey. 

This episode will give you the keys to building a concrete and actionable SWOT analysis.

Season 1: Alignment

Evaluate your Data maturity

Specify your Data strategy

Getting sponsors

Build a SWOT analysis

Season 2: Adapting

Organize your Data Office

Organize your Data Community

Creating Data Awareness

Season 3: Implementing Metadata Management With a Data Catalog

The importance of metadata

6 weeks to start your data governance journey

In our previous episode, we discussed the different means to obtain the right level of sponsorship to ensure endorsement from decision makers.

This week, we will teach you how to build a concrete and actionable SWOT analysis to assess the company Data Governance Strategy in the best possible way.

What is a SWOT Analysis?

Before we give our tips and tricks on building the best SWOT analysis possible, let’s go back and define what a SWOT analysis is. 

A SWOT analysis is a technique used to determine and define yourStrengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT). Here are some examples:

Strengths

This element addresses the things your company or department does especially well. This can be a competitive advantage or a particular attribute on your product or service. An example of a “strength” for a data-driven initiative would be “Great data culture” or “Data shared across the entire company”. 

Weaknesses

Once your strengths are listed, it is important to list your company’s weaknesses. What is holding your business or project back? Taking our example, a weakness in your data or IT department could be “Financial limitations”, “Legacy technology”, or even “Lack of a CDO”. 

Opportunities

Opportunities refer to favorable external factors that could give an organization a competitive advantage. Few competitors in your market, emerging needs for your product.. all of these are opportunities for a company. In our context, an opportunity could be “Migrating to the Cloud” or “Extra budget for data teams”. 

Threats

The final element of a SWOT analysis is Threats – everything that poses a risk to either your company itself or its likelihood of success or growth. For a data team, a threat could be “Stricter regulatory environment for data” for example.

How to Start Building a Smart SWOT Analysis

Building a good SWOT analysis means adopting a democratic approach that will ensure you don’t miss important topics.

There are 3 principles you should follow:

Gather the Right People

Invite different parts of your Data Governance Team stakeholders from Business to IT, CDO and CPO representatives. You’ll find that different groups within your company will have entirely different perspectives that will be critical to making your SWOT analysis successful.

Throw Your Ideas Against the Wall

Doing a SWOT analysis consists, in part, in brainstorming meetings. We suggest giving out sticky-notes and encouraging the team to generate ideas on their own to start things off. This prevents group thinking and ensures that all voices are heard.

This first ceremony should be no more than 15 minutes of individual brainstorming, Put all the sticky-notes up on the wall and group similar ideas together. 

You can allot additional time to enable anyone to add notes at this point if someone else’s idea sparks a new thought.

Rank the Ideas

It is now  time to rank the ideas. We suggest giving a certain number of points to each participant. Each participant will rate the ideas by assigning points to the ones they consider most relevant. You will then be able to prioritize them with accuracy.

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About Actian Corporation

Actian makes data easy. Our data platform simplifies how people connect, manage, and analyze data across cloud, hybrid, and on-premises environments. With decades of experience in data management and analytics, Actian delivers high-performance solutions that empower businesses to make data-driven decisions. Actian is recognized by leading analysts and has received industry awards for performance and innovation. Our teams share proven use cases at conferences (e.g., Strata Data) and contribute to open-source projects. On the Actian blog, we cover topics ranging from real-time data ingestion, data analytics, data governance, data management, data quality, data intelligence to AI-driven analytics.