The Forrester Wave™ Data Governance Solutions, Q3 2023: A Guide To The Report

Updated September 29th, 2023
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The Forrester Wave™: Data Governance Solutions, Q3 2023 is a 29-criterion evaluation guide of data governance solutions for data leaders and practitioners. It evaluates a few existing data governance solutions for core capabilities such as data cataloging, policy management, privacy, and compliance.

According to Forrester, the data governance market is “no longer just about regulatory compliance; today, it helps businesses realize the true potential of their data.”

As such, their assessment considers solutions that facilitate business insight and value creation, while enabling business user democratization through intelligent self-service capabilities.

In this article, we’ll explore the Forrester Wave™: Data Governance Solutions, 2023 report’s structure and contents, key evaluation criteria, and process.

Table of contents #

  1. Forrester Wave report for data governance solutions
  2. Structure of the Forrester Wave report for data governance
  3. What is the evaluation process for data governance solutions?
  4. Forrester Wave™: What are the evaluation criteria?
  5. What’s next?
  6. Related reads

What is the Forrester Wave report for data governance solutions? #

The Forrester Wave™: Data Governance Solutions, Q3 2023 is an assessment of large players in the data governance solutions market.

The Forrester Wave™ is a guide that aids in shortlisting options in a technology marketplace. It follows The Forrester Wave™ Methodology to compare the players in a software, hardware, or services market.

However, the Forrester Wave report doesn’t represent the entire vendor landscape.

The report states that vendors in this space should:

  • Provide a standalone governance solution that can be integrated into open data infrastructures
  • Offer capabilities for several data governance segments, such as data security, privacy and compliance, data strategy, analytics, data sharing, and commercialization
  • Cover major geographic areas and have a robust market presence
  • Are frequently mentioned by Forrester analysts, clients, vendors, and more

The Forrester Wave report is a starting point for data leaders and practitioners to evaluate data governance solutions using Forrester’s evaluation criteria and process.

What does the Forrester Wave say about the role of data governance solutions? #


The Forrester Wave report for data governance solutions outlines the trends shaping the market and tells you what to look for when evaluating vendors.

According to the report, the data governance solutions that you consider should:

  • Provide a stable foundation for trusted data intelligence for AI
  • Support stewardship functions through intuitive workflows and advanced collaboration
  • Empower data democratization by enhancing data literacy and self-service

Let’s explore each aspect further.

Provide a stable foundation for trusted data intelligence for AI #


The data governance solution should offer collaborative and actionable data lineage, versatile access controls, and comprehensive data quality checks. The report recommends opting for solutions that harness AI’s true potential without compromising trust or integrity.

This can include AI-fueled automation of policy management, data quality management, or ML-infused discovery and classification features.

Support stewardship functions through intuitive workflows and advanced collaboration #


Data stewards play a crucial role in data governance as they can directly affect the efficiency and effectiveness of data products and the value they generate.

As a result, the products you evaluate should reduce the time and effort required for data stewardship tasks, enable seamless communication among data stakeholders, and promote collaboration.

The data governance solution should also safeguard the accuracy and compliance of data insights.

Empower data democratization by enhancing data literacy and self-service #


Data democratization becomes a reality when you amplify data literacy and enable self-service data access. So, data governance vendors should offer:

  • Advanced glossary capabilities
  • Granular personalization options
  • Intuitive, embedded controls
  • Self-service capabilities to reduce the dependency on IT departments
  • Data literacy training programs

“Best-in-class data governance solutions offer robust data literacy training programs and effortless channels to reusable data sets, ensuring that trusted data access becomes a practical reality across the organization.”

What is the structure of the Forrester Wave report for data governance? #

The report includes:

  • A summary of the data governance solutions landscape and its evolving trends
  • An evaluation summary for data governance solutions in the market
  • The scorecard for prominent tools
  • Vendor offerings, profiles, strengths, and weaknesses
  • Vendor inclusion criteria

Forrester Wave™: What is the evaluation process for data governance solutions? #

Forrester follows the Forrester Wave™ Methodology to evaluate vendors in the data governance market. They conduct preliminary research to develop a list of vendors to consider for the evaluation.

They further narrow down the list by eliminating solutions that don’t meet Forrester’s inclusion criteria for the data governance report.

Afterward, Forrester gathers details of the vendor’s product capabilities, strategy, etc. through a detailed questionnaire, demos/briefings, and customer reference surveys/interviews.

These insights are used to measure each vendor’s performance via a relative rating system outlined by the Forrester Wave™ Methodology.

Forrester also asks the vendors to verify the accuracy of their findings before publishing the report.

Forrester Wave™: What are the evaluation criteria? #

Each of the data governance solution providers under evaluation was ranked, positioned, and scored based on:

  1. Current offering
  2. Strategy
  3. Market presence

Current offering #


The Y-axis of the Forrester Wave graphic represents the strength — weaker to stronger — of each product offering. The evaluation parameters include the following criteria:

  • Data discovery and access
  • Data quality and usage
  • Policy management
  • Stewardship management
  • Data collaboration
  • Data governance management
  • Advanced features and focus areas

Forrester assigns 50% of the ranking weightage to these essential data governance product capabilities.

Strategy #


The X-axis represents the strength of each vendor’s strategy. Forrester assigns another 50% of the ranking weightage to evaluate the data governance product strategy. This includes:

  1. Product vision
  2. Innovation
  3. Roadmap
  4. Partner ecosystem
  5. Adoption
  6. Community
  7. Pricing flexibility and transparency

Market presence #


The size of the circle represents market presence. This reflects each vendor’s revenue and number of customers. A gray bubble or open dot represents a non-participating solution provider.

Nonparticipating vendors are solution providers that met Forrester’s inclusion criteria but declined to participate in the process or contributed only partially to the evaluation.

Unlike the “current offering” and “strategy”, Forrester does not assign any ranking weightage to evaluate marketing presence. The key evaluation criteria include:

  1. Revenue growth
  2. Number of active customers

This report serves as a guide for data leaders and practitioners to consider, evaluate, and choose the right data governance solution for their data estate.

What’s next? #

If you found our article on the Forrester Wave guide for data governance solutions, then check out our comprehensive take on The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Data Catalogs, Q3 2024. The report recognizes Atlan as a leader in enterprise data catalogs.

“Atlan is the tool of choice for DataOps and data product deployment. Atlan’s extensive integration makes data sharing easy, flexible, and scalable within hybrid distributed ecosystems for analytics and operational use cases.”

Download 👉 The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Data Catalogs, Q3 2024

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