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Information Governance – To Store or not to Store – that is the Question?

 When it comes to Information Governance knowing what to save is key.

 

Information governance or IG as it sometimes referred to, is a vast topic about which much has been written. So much so, that for some readers, key information about what to consider when purchasing and installing IG and eDiscovery software, is getting lost in the miasma.  An effective and efficient IG policy will, by its very nature, involve the integration of people, corporate policy and technology and all three must work together to address the challenge of what to store and what not to store. Every person will have an opinion, new technology requires changes to be made and new policy will need to be written.  How then can organizations embrace IG in a specific, cost effective and measurable way? 

 

We know the installation of enterprise software often becomes more burdensome than helpful.  80% of an organizations data is unstructured so first and foremost it is important for organizations to really strategize their IG requirements, drilling down to the core essence of what must be stored.  They must determine this while still ensuring they are positioned defensibly and all without adding additional strain to their existing systems. Geoff Bourgeios from Acaveo writes, “The vast majority of products today work on the premise that information must first be moved into some proprietary, siloed repository before any value can be derived.”  This of course, often resulted in products that were expensive, difficult to implement and to use. Rather, he says, it makes significantly more sense to utilize a product that can “manage more of the information life cycle in-place….even in the source systems.”  We’ve all heard that talk is cheap and so is storage if you factor in only the cost of procuring disk space.  If however, all associated costs are taken into consideration, you may want to look at either Cloud or in-place information management systems.  We’ve learned that “new alternative approaches and technologies are emerging that enable us to impose effective information governance across multiple unstructured data repositories.” As such, organizations are urged to consider this newer technology (like eDiscovery software) as the enabler and accelerator of any information governance policy that it puts in place.

Information Governance | IG | eDiscovery

Here are some key considerations for organizations to ask themselves when facing the prospect of creating an effective IG framework:

  • Can or should you manage your Information Governance requirements with in-place technology?
  • Unless required by law, for compliance purposes, avoid getting locked in to specific and siloed technology, particularly ones with a costly infrastructure that is in turn hard to access and unwieldy in its operability.
  • Should a company employ agent based or Cloud? Utilizing agent – based solutions can impact performance on production systems.  Geoff suggests, organizations “seriously evaluate your information governance needs and determine if an agent-based approach is  justified.”
  • Look for technology that will give you an immediate ROI.  Any technology you bring on board should be actionable immediately and provide a return on your investment equal to its expense.
  • Search for software that provides integrated analytics that are actionable.      
  • Organizations today need a defensible information governance practice over all data, unstructured or otherwise. Seek software solutions      that provide that. 

Keep these points in mind as you shop for Information Governance and e-Discovery solutions that best fit your organizations needs and demands.  Ask the questions BEFORE you go shopping.  Determine what needs to be stored and that will help you decide how to store it. By asking the right questions first, you’ll avoid creating a costly and unwieldy IG system, creating instead a specific, measurable and actionalable data management system that works.

Please share this information with your colleagues or send us your questions, comments and feedback to:  waynes@flexnet.com.   Additionally, if you would like to download a full copy of an Information Governance white paper, please click here  or you can find more information governance resources on our web site http://flexnetsoftware.com and we look forward to answering any eDiscovery and Information Governance questions you may have; please contact us at 1 (800) 263-8733

 

 

 

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