Forrester Data Governance Explained: Success Factors for 2025

The Forrester Wave™: Data Governance Solutions, Q3 2025 is out now! Atlan was named a Leader and recognized as a Customer Favorite, backed by customer feedback and proven enterprise adoption. According to the report, Atlan is a “top choice” for organizations seeking a “modern, AI-native governance platform.” 👉 Get more insights in our latest blog.

---

What are the pillars of data governance according to Forrester? #

Summarize and analyze this article with 👉 🔮 Google AI Mode or 💬 ChatGPT or 🔍 Perplexity or 🤖 Claude or 🐦 Grok (X) .

Forrester’s Jay Chaurasia identifies these four foundational pillars as essential to setting up an insights-driven business:

1. Data policies and procedures: Clear, operationalized policies guide how data is managed and used. This includes definition, access control, lifecycle rules, and compliance mappings.
2. Data catalog and lineage: Robust metadata capabilities—data catalogs and lineage tracking—ensure discoverability, transparency, and traceability across systems.
3. Data privacy and security: Governance frameworks must protect sensitive information with mechanisms like encryption, masking, access controls, and privacy-compliance workflows.
4. Data collaboration and sharing: Governance should enable safe, federated sharing among stakeholders and business domains—promoting democratization while preserving standards.

The four pillars of data governance - Source: Forrester.

---

What does Forrester state as the benefits of data governance? #

Forrester’s Senior Analyst Jay Chaurasia calls a solid data governance foundation the key to turning data into meaningful and actionable insights across an organization. The biggest benefits that effective data governance offers are:

• Proactive operating model for greater collaboration and compliant data sharing
• Data democratization, which promotes data discovery, stewardship, and a data-driven culture – leading to new products/services and revenue streams
• Enhanced context through metadata management, driving data literacy and enabling cross-domain collaboration and insight-sharing
• Enterprise data security (especially sensitive data) through access control

---

What does the future of data governance look like according to Forrester? #

The latest Forrester Wave™: Data Governance Solutions, Q3 2025 highlights that future-forward organizations are adopting data governance solutions that fuel AI models, speed up insights, and drive value creation across the business.

Three trends dominating this emerging future are:

• Agentic AI for intelligent, automated, and scalable governance: The best data governance solutions are embedding AI across the governance lifecycle — from classification and policy detection to rule generation and remediation.
• Trusted, reusable data products: Governed, reusable data assets are being packaged and shared as products (often through internal marketplaces) for AI model development, faster insights, and greater business value.
• Business-centric data governance: From intuitive UIs to embedded guidance, customers want governance tools that empower stewards and domain experts, and not just technical teams.

---

What makes data governance effective according to Forrester? #

Forrester emphasizes that traditional command-and-control approaches have often led to failure, creating bureaucracy, manual bottlenecks, and limited adoption.

Effective governance avoids these pitfalls by addressing:

• Manual documentation and static processes
• Inadequate or outdated lineage tracking
• Limited visibility into policy enforcement
• Lack of explainable, business-friendly AI governance
• Weak vendor partnerships that fail to drive enablement

Manual documentation and static processes #

Heavy reliance on manual documentation slows down governance initiatives and creates inconsistencies. Effective governance replaces static documentation with automated metadata capture and living policies that evolve with the business.

Inadequate or outdated lineage tracking #

Forrester’s senior analyst Kim Herrington states that most data governance programs fail when they don’t communicate the following flow about the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of data evolution:

• How raw data becomes structured information (e.g., through validation, integration, and categorization).
• How information turns into knowledge (e.g., by adding business context, analysis, and interpretation).
• How knowledge evolves into wisdom (e.g., through experience, strategic decision-making, and action).

Documenting this flow and communicating this information in real-time can transform data governance from static policy documents into dynamic drivers of business intelligence.

Limited visibility into policy enforcement #

Policies that exist only on paper do little to protect data. Governance must ensure that enforcement is visible, measurable, and auditable across the data stack, enabling teams to track compliance in real time.

Lack of explainable, business-friendly AI governance #

AI-driven systems introduce risks of bias, opacity, and compliance gaps. Forrester highlights the importance of explainability, transparency, and business-friendly frameworks that bridge AI and traditional governance.

Weak vendor partnerships that fail to drive enablement #

The Forrester Wave™: Data Governance Solutions, Q3 2025 states that success depends on the strength of the partnership behind data governance platforms.

While it’s vital to have future-proof capabilities, onboarding and enablement are deciding factors in ensuring data governance success by translating features into real-world value.

“What customers valued most was a vendor that remained engaged beyond implementation. And that translates into offering strategic guidance, sharing lessons from other industries, and helping teams scale adoption and impact.” - Forrester Wave™: Data Governance Solutions, Q3 2025

---

What tools does Forrester recommend for data governance? #

The latest Forrester Wave™: Data Governance Solutions, Q3 2025 names Atlan a Leader and recognized as a Customer Favorite, backed by customer feedback and proven enterprise adoption.

Forrester highlights Atlan as an AI-native governance platform that blends governance capabilities with value creation:

• Intelligent automation for classification, lineage, policy enforcement and other essential governance workflows
• Deep integration across modern data stacks
• Broad accessibility through self-service discovery and collaborative workflows
• Empowerment of business users and stewards with intuitive, intelligent experiences

This positions Atlan as a top choice for organizations looking to unify governance, accelerate time to value, and prepare for AI-driven data ecosystems.

---

Real stories from real customers: Ensuring data governance success and unlocking value creation #

---

Ready to put Forrester’s data governance guidance into practice? #

Forrester’s perspective makes one thing clear: governance is a business enabler when it’s tied to value, supported by metadata, and scaled through automation.

By adopting the four pillars and aligning with modern tools like Atlan, organizations can accelerate insight delivery, strengthen trust, and prepare for the AI-driven future.

---

FAQs about Forrester data governance #

1. How does Forrester define data governance? #

Forrester defines data governance as the set of processes, policies, and frameworks that ensure data accuracy, security, usability, and compliance across the enterprise.

It emphasizes moving away from rigid, command-and-control models toward collaborative, metadata-driven governance that accelerates insights and supports AI readiness.

2. What is Forrester Wave for data governance? #

Forrester Wave Data Governance Solutions (from Q3 2025) is an evaluative benchmark that rates 13 of the most significant data-governance platforms, assesses each vendor’s current offering, strategy and customer feedback to help enterprises choose a platform.

3. What are Forrester’s four pillars of data governance? #

Forrester identifies four pillars essential to building an insights-driven business:

• Data policies and procedures for clarity and consistency.
• Data catalog and lineage for transparency and traceability.
• Data privacy and security for protecting sensitive information.
• Data collaboration and sharing for safe democratization of data.

4. What benefits of data governance does Forrester highlight? #

According to Forrester, effective governance enables proactive collaboration, compliant data sharing, improved data democratization, metadata-driven literacy, and enterprise-wide security.

These benefits allow organizations to create new revenue streams, foster innovation, and strengthen trust.

5. What makes data governance effective according to Forrester? #

Forrester emphasizes avoiding command-and-control pitfalls like bureaucracy, manual documentation, and limited visibility.

Instead, effective governance is automated, explainable, business-friendly, and powered by strong vendor partnerships that drive enablement and adoption.

6. How does Forrester link AI with data governance? #

Forrester highlights that data governance must evolve to support AI by ensuring metadata accuracy, explainability, and bias mitigation.

AI-native governance solutions are critical for building trust in AI models and scaling insights safely.

7. Which tools does Forrester recommend for data governance? #

Forrester recommends modern governance platforms that unify metadata, automation, and collaboration. The Forrester Wave Q3 2025 highlights Atlan as a Leader, calling it a top choice for organizations that need AI-native governance with broad integration and self-service accessibility.

---