How do you establish data ownership for customer data?

Required tools

• Management buy-in — Ownership without authority is just a title.

Distribute the responsibility

1. 1.Designate one owner per data domain

   One for the customer and contact, one for the product and price. Not a group—one named individual who can make the final decision in the event of a disagreement.

2. 2.Give the owner a mandate

   The person in question must be able to define terms, set registration requirements, and prioritize data cleanup. Without a mandate, the role becomes merely a reporting obligation.

3. 3.Distinguish the data owner from the person entering the data

   The owner makes the decisions; others keep the records. They do not have to be the same person, but the owner must know who is doing what.

Make it measurable

1. 4.Agree on three quality goals

   Percentage with an organisation number, number of duplicates, percentage of active customers updated in the past year. Enough to indicate the direction without turning it into a reporting exercise.

2. 5.Report them regularly

   Quarterly to management, together with other management information. Data quality that is never reported is never prioritized.

3. 6.Link ownership to changes

   If someone wants to add a field or change a definition, it must go through the owner. This is what prevents the model from deteriorating over time.