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Data governance services

Data governance services

Q: How is data governance different from data management?

Data management is the whole operation of getting data from source to dashboard: the pipelines, storage, integration, and analytics that move and shape it. Data governance is the layer of rules and accountability on top: who owns each dataset, what a correct value looks like, who may see it, and how those decisions stay enforced as systems change.The two work together, management builds the machinery, governance decides how it behaves. If your pain today is that reports disagree or no one can say who owns a number, governance is where the fix starts; if data arrives late or pipelines break, the engineering side comes first, and our team can tell you which after a short look at your estate.

Q: How does data governance improve the quality of our reports?

Most reporting disputes trace to one root cause: the same metric defined two ways in two systems. Governance removes that by giving every metric a single definition, a named owner who defends it, and lineage that shows how each number is calculated. Once those are in place, two teams pulling active customers get the same figure, and a number in a board deck traces to its source in seconds.One clear signal of where you stand: if your analysts keep a private spreadsheet to reconcile the official dashboard, that workaround is the surest sign governance will pay off, and it usually points straight to the metric to standardize first.

Q: How much does data governance cost, and how long does it take?

Cost depends mostly on scope, and the single biggest driver is how many data domains and source systems come under governance. A program covering three core domains, say customer, product, and finance, and their feeding systems is a very different size from an enterprise-wide rollout, so listing those domains and the systems behind each gives you a rough sense of scale. If pulling that list together is the hard part, our team builds it with you, mapping the domains and their sources straight from your systems as the first step. Whatever the size, most clients reach a funded, sequenced roadmap within 14 days of kickoff, then phase the build by domain so value lands early. When you want that scoped into real numbers, contact us and we will start from wherever your list stands

Q: Where should we start if we have no governance in place today?

The best first move is deliberately small: pick the one domain where trustworthy data matters most, usually customer or finance, and stand up governance there before scaling. Starting narrow gives you a working model, real owners, and a visible win that makes the next domain easier to fund. To find that first domain, look at where your leaders already lose confidence, the number they question in every meeting tends to sit on the data worth governing first. If a few candidates feel equally urgent, our team scores them with you on business impact against effort so the sequence is defensible.

Q: Do we need a tool like Collibra to start?

No, and starting with a tool is one of the more common ways governance stalls. A catalog or governance platform enforces decisions you have already made, so buying one before you have agreed definitions and owners simply automates the confusion. Relevant sets the rules, ownership, and definitions first, then recommends tooling sized to what you actually need to enforce, which is often smaller than the enterprise suite a vendor pitched. If you have already bought a platform, that is not wasted: our team configures it around your governance model so the investment starts working

Analytics and AI multiply whatever you feed them, including the disagreements buried in your data. Relevant sets the ownership, definitions, and controls that make your data safe to build on, one governed source of truth behind every model and dashboard your teams ship.

Get a data roadmap in 14 days

13+

Years in businessDelivering data and software solutions

246

Projects deliveredEngineering that solves real industry problems

98%

Client satisfactionCustomers who return with new projects

92%

Senior talentSenior engineers on our delivery teams

99%

On-time deliveryMilestones delivered on the promised date

Our data governance services

Data governance framework design
Master data management
Metadata management and data catalog
Data lineage and traceability
Governed data across every system
Data stewardship and ownership
Сompliance and privacy
Data quality standards

Data governance framework design
Master data management
Metadata management and data catalog
Data lineage and traceability
Governed data across every system
Data stewardship and ownership
Сompliance and privacy
Data quality standards

Data governance framework design

Relevant defines the operating model, policies, and decision rights that set how your organization owns and runs each data asset. Governance is the ownership and policy layer inside the wider lifecycle our data management services cover, from architecture to warehousing.

A governance operating model with named owners and stewards for every domain
Policies for classification, retention, and acceptable use, written as rules teams follow
A phased rollout that starts with your highest-value data domains

Master data management

Customer, product, and supplier records that disagree across systems gain one agreed definition and a single golden record your teams share.

Match-and-merge rules that resolve duplicate records into one golden record
Domain models for customer, product, and supplier data
Survivorship logic that keeps the most current, trusted value for each field

Metadata management and data catalog

A searchable catalog documents what each dataset means, where it lives, and who owns it, so people find trusted data on their own.

A business glossary that ties technical fields to plain-language definitions
Sensitivity, ownership, and certification tags on every dataset
Self-service search that brings analysts to approved data in minutes

Data lineage and traceability

Every metric traces back through its transformations to the source system, so your team answers where a number came from with confidence.

End-to-end lineage from source systems through pipelines to dashboards
Impact analysis that shows what a schema change affects before it ships
Audit-ready trails that satisfy reviewers on the first pass

Governed data across every system

Relevant applies your ownership and definition rules across CRM, ERP, and SaaS sources so the same field returns one agreed value everywhere, work our data integration services carry into automated pipelines.

Source mapping that reconciles conflicting fields into one definition
Conflict-resolution rules applied the same way across systems
A consolidated view every team reads the same way

Data stewardship and ownership

Named stewards receive clear responsibilities, workflows, and tooling to keep their domains accurate as the business changes.

A RACI that assigns ownership across business and engineering teams
Stewardship workflows for approvals, issue triage, and change requests
Dashboards that show each steward the health of the data they own

Сompliance and privacy

Relevant classifies sensitive data and builds the role-based access and audit trails that keep regulators and customers confident in how you handle it.

Data classification mapped to GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA obligations
Role-based access so people reach only the data their work requires
Retention and consent rules enforced inside the platform

Data quality standards

Governance sets the thresholds that define a good record, and the ongoing checks that hold data to them run through our data quality management services.

Quality thresholds agreed per domain
Criteria that mark a dataset as certified
A shared definition of good data across teams

How a data governance engagement works

A data governance assessment you can act on
Your current data estate gets mapped across sources, owners, definitions, and the gaps between them, with a prioritized findings report inside the first two weeks.
A governance roadmap in 14 days
Priorities, owners, and quick wins arrive as a sequenced plan tied to your highest-value domains, ready to fund and staff.
A framework your teams adopt
Policies, roles, and the catalog take shape with the people who will run them each day, so your stewards work in tools they helped design.
Controls wired into your stack
Ownership and quality rules move from documents into the pipelines and platforms that carry your data, where our data engineering team builds and automates them.
A program your team runs
Dashboards, monitoring, and steward workflows keep the estate accurate as your business grows, and we hand the program over documented in full.

Technologies we use for data governance

Cataloging and metadata
Collibra, Alation, Atlan, Microsoft Purview (confirm with engineers)
Data quality and observability
Great Expectations, Soda, Monte Carlo (confirm with engineers)
Access and security
Immuta, cloud IAM, Okta (confirm with engineers)
Data platforms
Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, Amazon Redshift
Pipelines and transformation
dbt, Apache Airflow, Fivetran (confirm with engineers)

Why choose Relevant for data governance

A plan you approve before we build

Every engagement starts with a phased roadmap, each phase priced and dated, and no phase starts without your sign-off.

GDPR, HIPAA, and ISO 27001 certified

Recognized security and compliance practices are built into how we handle your data.

96% employee retention

The specialists who design your framework stay to see it run.

Up to 50% faster delivery

Our AI Delivery Framework speeds catalog and pipeline work with up to 20% fewer bugs, and every release still passes senior code review.

98% client satisfaction

Clients bring us their next data project after the first engagement.

Your engineers own every deliverable

Each policy, model, and pipeline ships documented, so your team runs the program on its own.

What clients say about Relevant

4.9 is our Clutch
average

Ready to give every team one number they trust?

Relevant builds the ownership, definitions, and controls behind one governed source of truth.

Book a governance assessment

**Nataliia Dynka**Client Partnership Director

**Nelia Morozyk**Head of Sales Operations

Frequently asked questions

How is data governance different from data management?

How does data governance improve the quality of our reports?

How much does data governance cost, and how long does it take?

Where should we start if we have no governance in place today?

Do we need a tool like Collibra to start?

Get to one governed source of truth

Our data governance services

Data governance framework design
Master data management
Metadata management and data catalog
Data lineage and traceability
Governed data across every system
Data stewardship and ownership
Сompliance and privacy
Data quality standards

Data governance framework design
Master data management
Metadata management and data catalog
Data lineage and traceability
Governed data across every system
Data stewardship and ownership
Сompliance and privacy
Data quality standards

Why choose Relevant for data governance

A plan you approve before we build

Every engagement starts with a phased roadmap, each phase priced and dated, and no phase starts without your sign-off.

GDPR, HIPAA, and ISO 27001 certified

Recognized security and compliance practices are built into how we handle your data.

96% employee retention

The specialists who design your framework stay to see it run.

Up to 50% faster delivery

Our AI Delivery Framework speeds catalog and pipeline work with up to 20% fewer bugs, and every release still passes senior code review.

98% client satisfaction

Clients bring us their next data project after the first engagement.

Your engineers own every deliverable

Each policy, model, and pipeline ships documented, so your team runs the program on its own.

Get to one governed source of truth