Flexible data management is the process of creating and maintaining data structures that are able to respond to business demands. This allows businesses to better adapt and respond to changes in the business environment. It also flexible data management improves access to information and aid in decision-making using the most accurate and current data.

As companies struggle to keep up with a rapidly changing business world, adaptability becomes more essential. The old saying that the only constant is change is true in modern organizations and if an organization’s information infrastructure isn’t up to date with changing requirements and strategic goals it will soon become obsolete.

Flexibility is also crucial to ensure that businesses can efficiently utilize their information assets to gain competitive advantage. This can be done by implementing new methods for monitoring the health and integrity of data pipelines and individual data pieces (known collectively as «data observability») which aid in identifying and resolve problems before they affect the data’s quality or security. This method offers a proactive, automated method of managing data that reduces the requirement for human intervention and speeds problem-solving.

Another benefit of flexible data management is that it makes it easier for different teams to share and access information. For instance, marketing could have a different way of tracking and resolving risks than IT, however both approaches can be rolled into one simple-to-read report that can be sent to the organization’s leadership. This is possible thanks to tools such as business glossaries and data federation which are driven by metadata.