by Angela Guess
Isabelle Guis recently wrote in ReadWrite, “Data is being collected from more sources than ever and decentralized between cloud and on-premise storage. There’s a lot on the line: organizations who don’t understand how to make use of their internal and external data can impede productivity, put their corporate reputation at risk, miss business opportunities, and suffer data loss and breaches. When defining and implementing a data governance plan there are several considerations for companies, including how and what to monitor, who has access to information, where it is stored and what they can do with it.”
She goes on, “As these things typically go, the first step is admitting you should address this problem even if complex and intimidating. It’s an interesting dilemma: the explosion of data is an issue created by technology that will only be solved by technology. And it requires companies to get smart about their content. The construction industry is a great example. This industry centers their business around the phrase ‘time is money.’ Construction firms operate on razor thin margins and know that project delays lead to cost overruns which cut into profits for a given project.”
Guis goes on, “This is also an industry that hasn’t exactly lived on the cutting edge; an industry that up until recently functioned on paper. It functioned on a lot of paper: architectural files, contracts, and change requests generated an enormous amount of physical files exacerbate by the physical silos between remote job sites and head offices. Today, the market leaders in this industry are brilliant examples of how businesses should move with the times. They have embraced file-sharing solutions in an effort to collaborate in real-time.”
Photo credit: Flickr/ ninahale