Many start-ups and small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) hit the ground running, taking care of hiring, marketing, inventory, workflow, countless other aspects of running a company…and within all of this, information governance is often put on a back burner. Yet today’s workforce is full of data which is constantly accumulating. Companies can use this data in many ways—but only when it is sorted, analyzed and turned into meaningful information. On average, only about 25% of a company’s raw data is valuable business information. And not only is this information beneficial for business strategy, it’s also crucial because some of it must be governed under legal regulations. So it’s imperative to manage it effectively.
How can you set up and maintain information governance while keeping up with all the other demands of your business? Many organizational leaders don’t even know where to begin. Our Compliance Accelerators can help you manage your information without impacting productivity, and we can meet you at whatever stage you’re working on. If you’re starting from the ground up, you should begin with Building an Information Governance Strategy.
Why Start with an Information Governance Strategy?
A strong information governance strategy is the foundation for an organization’s success in working with the data is has available. Having a clear governance program allows a company to demonstrate its standing in relation to business objectives and regulatory measures, both internally and for clients, partners or other stakeholders. Key objectives of this strategy are information protection, accuracy & accessibilty, and compliance:
- Protection: An organization’s informational assets need to be securely protected. Oftentimes this includes sensitive data of the company’s or of its customers, patients, etc. You don’t want to become victim to a costly data breach.
- Accuracy & accessibilty: Information is only valuable if it is accurate and correct, and accessible where (and only where) it needs to be accessed.
- Compliance: Organizations need to be sure to comply with legal and regulatory requirements related to data privacy and security, and understanding and managing information is the first step towards that assurance.
Objectives of Our Information Governance Strategy Accelerator
Our Compliance Accelerator for Information Governance Strategy is designed to make it easy for you to lay this foundation with quick time-to-value. These are the objectives we will help you achieve and questions that will be answered through your IG Strategy:
- Know Your Data: How is information currently managed within the organization, and where can improvements be made?
- Know Your Users: Who creates, uses, shares, and manages information in your company? How is that information used internally and externally?
- Manage Risk: Based on your industry and the types of information that you manage, what are your organization’s greatest risks? Do you have existing information policies?
- Storing Your Information / Content: What is your information architecture like—do you use file servers? Cloud? NAS?
- Recommendations and Next Steps: With your organization’s information and our industry data, we will collaborate on an Information Governance Strategy that you can build upon, giving you more visibility and control of your information.
- Learn About Tools and Services to Mitigate Risks: We’ll give you expert guidance on how and which cloud services can help you make the most of your Information Governance Strategy.
What’s Next
Once you’ve gotten an Information Governance Strategy set up, your framework will be in place and we can then delve deeper into data risk assessment, understanding, and protection. Read about our following Compliance Accelerators:
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Questions? Contact us to schedule a meeting with a Compliance and Governance specialist.
Also see: New U.S. Compliance Regulations in 2023