Data Assurance

Hindsight, insight or foresight, our data assurance services have it covered

Data Governance

Data governance is the broad framework under which an organisation collects and processes data, manages responsibilities, rules, policies, standards, guidelines & strategy. If you are uncertain on how your organisation is managing, protecting, controlling and utilising the data it collects, then we can advise and guide you through the process of optimising your data governance model and strategy to drive true value from your information assets.

Data Analysis, Mining and Visualisation

Every organisation is accumulating data; however, how it is used varies considerably, either due to concerns of poor data quality and unreliability, or a lack of understanding. Using a combination of specialist data interrogation tools and highly experienced data assurance specialists, we have the ability to provide the following assistance to ensure that collected data can be used to positively influence business direction and bring ‘intelligent insights on demand – the right data, at the right time to support the right decisions’:

• Data Analysis & mining techniques can be used to organise, join, match and refine data so that it may be analysed to identify issues and inconsistencies that undermine decision making whilst also providing assurance that the information you are using is complete and accurate. The data can then be examined for patterns and trends or correlations that answer questions and provide insights.
• Data Visualisation - to enhance our analysis and mining approaches, we have developed our own data visualisation tool called BDO Advantage that enables us to combine the benefits of modern technology with our experience, knowledge and understanding of our clients business. Advantage delivers data visualisations that enhance understanding of data and enable dynamic exploration to spot patterns, trends and outliers against business rules.

Data Protection, Security & Regulation

It is of paramount importance that your data is protected against unauthorised access, whether accidental or deliberate as your Data is not only a valuable asset to you; it is also valuable to your customers, competitors & criminals.  Moreover, personal data is increasingly regulated with severe penalties and reputational damage being incurred in the event of a data breach and increasingly.  This threat also increases as businesses continue to move to data being stored off premise in data centres and the cloud.

Our assurance frameworks provide a platform on which we assess your current data protection and security provisions and provide advice on best practice to give you piece of mind. We can also advise on current and future regulations, such as the European Data Protection Directive that is significantly raising the levels of responsibility attributable to handling data with correspondingly punishing penalties of up to €100m or 5% of gross revenue available as a sanction.