Which process involves the acquisition and management of data?

The process of data management encompasses all activities related to acquiring, organizing, storing, and accessing data in a systematic way. It ensures that data is curated and maintained efficiently to support the operational and strategic activities of an organization. This includes establishing policies for data governance, ensuring data quality, and creating data security protocols.

Data management is crucial for organizations as it helps in making informed decisions based on accurate and reliable data. It involves various facets such as database management, data architecture, and data governance, all aimed at maximizing the usability and accessibility of data across the organization.

The other options reflect specific aspects or stages of dealing with data, but they do not encapsulate the broad, overarching process that data management represents. Data manipulation refers to altering data to make it more useful; data synthesis is about combining data from different sources to create new insights; and data compilation involves gathering data into a comprehensive format. None of these processes encompass the entirety of data acquisition and management as effectively as data management does.