Naples, Fla., United States & Mumbai, Maharashtra, India | 18th June 2020: PwC India and ASG Technologies, a leading provider of solutions for the information-powered enterprise, today announced their partnership to help Indian organizations traverse the data governance space with confidence.

As regulatory environments globally become increasingly complex and business operations more virtual, there is no better time than now for organizations to develop complete trust in their data to ensure compliance and operational excellence. Indian businesses are being impacted by the emergence of heightened data privacy regulations locally, leading to a desire to become proactive in ensuring compliance practices are up-to-date, or risk playing catchup. In the unprecedented time of COVID-19, while all of us embrace technology and digitization, the importance of governing what data is being made available to whom and for what purpose is critical, due to the increased risk of data theft or potential data loss in transit.

Customers of PwC and ASG alike are facing these challenges and grappling with the quality of data they are using to make business decisions. In fact, a recent survey of IT professionals conducted by ASG found that 63% of respondents believe “bad” data has been used to fuel business decisions in their organization. Organizations need a technology-driven governance framework that can establish process-driven data trust within the enterprise and the expertise to make decisions based on that data. Together, PwC and ASG will help customers meet the challenges of data governance with a partnership that guarantees data trust and the traceability of information in a complex environment.

“We have seen major shifts towards data governance and data privacy in the Indian market, and businesses need experienced partners to help them navigate regulatory and operational changes,” said Sudipta Ghosh, partner and head of data analytics practice in India for PwC. “We have the unique market expertise to guide organizations through this changing business environment and deliver the promise of data governance.”

PwC’s Enterprise Data Governance (EDG) framework, in collaboration with ASG’s Data Intelligence solution, empowers enterprises to understand what information lives in their organization, where it came from, how it is being utilized by the business and the level of trust behind it. Only once organizations have answers to these questions can they use their trusted data to accelerate business decisions while ensuring compliance.

The EDG framework helps in defining the data governance charter and operating model for an organization with a specific focus on “data for control” and “data for growth” objectives. The Data Intelligence solution can connect metadata across multiple sources within an organization and deliver automated lineage. These comprehensive capabilities provide organizations with all the levers they need to put a successful data governance initiative into play.

“Regulation is just one hurdle businesses face, but their path to data governance is much more complex than merely maintaining compliance,” said Mukesh Deshpande, partner and data governance lead in India for PwC. “With the help of data governance framework and platforms, we’re able to realize our proven strategies for data trust and business use, which can only come to fruition once an organization understands the data it has, where it came from, how it is being consumed and whether it can truly be trusted by respective stakeholders.”

“When it comes to navigating the unique data governance challenges of the Indian market, PwC is an ideal partner to help us meet the demand for data governance initiatives,” said Saurabh Kothari, vice president, channels and alliances at ASG Technologies. “With PwC’s in-depth domain and market expertise, we can provide customers with a truly end-to-end solution for their most pressing data challenges, overlaying the best-in-class strategies and framework PwC has developed to the specific needs of enterprise customers in India.”

“As organizations around the world increasingly turn to technology to help solve their most pressing data challenges, ASG and PwC will provide organizations in India with an established, trusted partner to help them pioneer data governance initiatives, which are critical to their success,” said Kaushik Bagchi, vice president, information management at ASG Technologies. “This partnership stands to have a major impact for Indian businesses, with ASG and PwC setting the standard for data governance offerings in the region.”