3 benefits of good data management

Fast-moving technological advancements can make it challenging for leaders to anticipate what’s next for their business and embrace new opportunities for growth.

AI is one example. According to the ServiceNow Enterprise AI Maturity Index 2025, AI innovation is outpacing organisations’ ability to harness it. Global AI maturity scores fell nine points from 2024. By establishing a high-quality, accurate data foundation, organisations can help ensure AI models produce reliable outcomes.

Leaders can set the business up for success by integrating robust data practices into operations. Let’s explore three benefits of good data management.

1. Reduced risk exposure

Business risks are multiplying and becoming more complex, from regulation changes to supply chain vulnerabilities to AI-powered cyber threats.

When data resides in disparate systems—such as different databases for finance, operations, and IT—it becomes nearly impossible to gain a holistic understanding of the organisation’s overall operational risk exposure.

To maintain the agility needed to innovate and respond to market changes, organisations must proactively anticipate, prevent, and mitigate the impact of disruptions.

Leaders can use data models to organise data from disparate systems to create a unified view of assets. This can help them gain context about data associated with critical infrastructure or important business services and improve data quality.

Better data management can transform how businesses respond to incidents, minimise the blast radius of events, and help avoid future disruptions.

For example, solutions such as ServiceNow^® Workflow Data Fabric connect data repositories—associated with people, technology, facilities, and third parties—providing one view of risk data.

Workflow Data Fabric also integrates with third-party systems. These insights can help provide an understanding of operational vulnerabilities and regulatory obligations. This enables cyber security teams to monitor and mitigate operational vulnerabilities in real time and anticipate emerging threats.

2. Better AI implementation

AI can help organisations improve productivity. The Enterprise AI Maturity Index reveals that a quarter of Pacesetters—organisations furthest along in AI implementation—have invented new workflows to make work more efficient through human and AI collaboration.

Data is the key to identifying and solving problems with AI. To deploy AI successfully, organisations must first organise and consolidate their data. Without clean, high-quality data, they risk creating a hornet’s nest of complexity.

Organisations can link digitised control frameworks to their data and AI assets using ServiceNow AI Control Tower to support responsible use. This can help reduce the risk of bias and non-compliance with regulatory frameworks.

ServiceNow worked with the Swedish Public Employment Agency to digitise its policies. The internal audit team within the organisation had identified fraud in employment and welfare fund distribution, with approximately €1.2 billion misappropriated annually.

Fund distribution wasn’t fully aligned with local laws governing welfare benefits. To address this, ServiceNow helped the agency digitise its data, rulebook, and controls for integration into the ServiceNow AI Platform.

Now when citizens log on to the platform, they complete a questionnaire to assess their eligibility for financial benefits. Once they’re approved, the appropriate funds are automatically deposited into their account.

3. Improved decision-making

Effective decision-making requires input and cooperation from various business units.

When data isn’t readily shared across the organisation, it can be difficult to address challenges such as regulatory compliance and make decisions that affect multiple departments.

Centralising data from external lakes and systems of record into one source of truth can help minimise silos. It can also enable leadership teams to make informed decisions for long-term success.

For example, if an organisation’s customer relationship management (CRM) software licences are about to expire, this can have knock-on effects for customer service delivery.

By centralising procurement data and building a unified data view, decision-makers can anticipate the need to renew contracts and act before the customer success team loses CRM access.

This is a straightforward example. In a complex technology estate, where multiple technologies are used to deliver critical services, the power of the ServiceNow AI Platform can help manage in real time how those assets are performing in the delivery of the service.

In turn, this provides company leadership the confidence to make bold decisions, knowing their teams can respond to an event with haste.

ServiceNow helps organisations integrate data from different systems and connect control frameworks to key assets used to deliver critical business services.

The goal is to enable our clients to avoid the disruption of services to their clients, their employees, and the communities they serve. The ServiceNow AI Platform brings together real-time data, workflows, and analytics into a single view, making data accessible and actionable.

​​​Find out how ServiceNow can help put your data to work.