Today, Renad Al Majd Information Technology and Consulting Company (RMG) held a workshop entitled “Data Governance and Empowerment to Enhance National Assets and Capabilities” at the Marriott Hotel, in which more than 20 consultants and technical experts participated, in the presence of a number of representatives of 35 government agencies from various sectors.

The workshop aims to highlight best practices for activating data governance, present methodologies for developing data strategies in organizations, assist national entities in developing data governance frameworks and clarifying mechanisms for activating them, and review operational models for data governance and management.

The workshop was opened with a speech by the company’s CEO, Engineer Fayyad Bayan, in which he welcomed the attendees and thanked them for responding to the invitation, explaining that RMG and its team are always striving to hold workshops to raise awareness of the most prominent data management trends and the importance of following the best approaches and practices, and to enrich the discussion on data governance standards to maximize its potential as one of the most important strategic national assets.

Dr. Mohammed Al-Qadri, a consultant at RMG, presented the first session, in which he discussed the importance of data care and management, and how to enable entities to access their data and benefit from it in the best possible way to support their efforts in the transformation and developments they are witnessing during institutional changes.

During his speech, Al-Qadri stressed the importance of data as a strategic asset of real value, saying: “When dealing with data, we must assume that there is someone or an organization somewhere who has an interest in the data we have, and therefore data has real value that compels us not to ignore it.”.

Al-Qadri mentioned some other benefits that can be used to achieve great benefits for companies and entities, such as using data in marketing and advertising efforts, product design, analyzing customer loyalty, predicting their expectations and reactions, measuring market size, and other benefits that contribute to business growth and development in one way or another.

During his talk, the data management consultant touched on the approaches and types of business models related to data, namely Data as a Service, in which anonymous and aggregated data is sold to intermediary companies or end customers who in turn analyze it in order to extract insights to support the decision-making process.

Another model is Insight as a Service, which involves selling insights and data analysis results as a product, using the organization's internal data or by combining it with third-party or open data. For example, websites specializing in financial market news sell data, insights, reports, and important news to both individual and institutional investors.

Dr. Mohammed Al-Qadri also pointed to the concept of “data monetization,” which refers to leveraging available data to generate measurable economic benefits. There are two main approaches to generating economic value and maximizing the benefits derived from data.

The first approach, internal (within the organization), focuses on leveraging data to improve its processes, productivity, products, services, and customer and beneficiary experiences. The second approach, external (outside the organization), involves creating and generating new revenue streams by making data or its analytical products available to customers and partners.

Al-Qadri explained that the return on investment from data comes in two ways: direct and indirect. Indirect returns include improvements in an organization's business performance in measurable ways, such as increased production efficiency or enhanced service levels and customer experience. This can result in either increased revenue, reduced expenses and costs, or both. Data can also be monetized by trading it with other parties for a specific benefit. Direct economic returns occur when data or its analytical products are sold to a beneficiary or intermediary for a fee.

The consultant also reviewed some examples and experiences through which data can be utilized and its value maximized, and mentioned, for example, the Datathon initiative launched by STC to create products based on exploiting the potential of data to study traffic and movement in cities and identify cluster areas to help relevant authorities, such as the Ministry of Transport and regional secretariats, in city planning and transportation management.

He cited the example of how data can be monetized to improve business efficiency at the National Center for Performance Measurement of Public Entities (Adaa), which uses data to create indicators that measure the performance of public entities, supporting their efficiency and effectiveness in achieving their goals and strategic objectives. He also mentioned Elm Company, which provides data products to beneficiaries in the public and private sectors to help them complete their projects and operations with high efficiency.

He stressed that the process of data monetization involves many opportunities for most entities, regardless of their size, as each entity has or produces large amounts of data that can unlock enormous financial value if it is optimally exploited and properly managed according to best practices.

For his part, Engineer Zaher Al-Baali, Data Management Consultant at RMG, stressed the need for active participation to reach a national strategic vision for the optimal use of data, emphasizing the need to apply appropriate governance systems to create real value from data and benefit from information assets that have become a strategic national asset.

During the workshop, the role of the governance framework and the necessity of its application were explained, along with its most important pillars, which include rules, policies, standards, requirements, people, and the processes that these people follow to control data.

Engineer Hossam Talawi, a data management consultant, reviewed the four basic components of the data governance framework, best practices for creating a data governance framework, and the stages and methodology for activating data governance based on controls and specifications, starting from the reporting and evaluation stage, through the establishment, governance and planning stages, and finally reaching the operation and knowledge transfer stages.

The workshop witnessed a number of interventions and discussions by the attendees that addressed the importance of spreading a culture of data governance and applying standard criteria in national bodies and data management offices, and the need to work on developing the governance system in institutions to adapt it to rapid technological developments and benefit from them in the best possible way.

In conclusion, the CEO of RMG stressed the need to prepare and establish an incubator environment regarding such topics to exchange experiences with all parties, explaining that his company, Renad Al Majd for Information Technology and Consulting, plans to organize similar forums and workshops to encourage and spread awareness about data management fields with the participation of all concerned parties.

It is worth mentioning that Renad Al Majd Company (RMG) is a leading Saudi company in the fields of information technology and consulting that helps national entities to grow and develop and enables them to succeed during the digital age by providing its technical and consulting services and solutions in digital transformation, quality standards, data management, process engineering and others.