by Angela Guess
Pedro Hernandez recently wrote in Datamation, “When it comes to information governance, the good news is that most enterprise organizations can at least grasp its significance in running a tight (and profitable) ship, according to the latest research from Veritas. The bad news is that relatively few businesses have mastered the practice. Information governance essentially describes an end-to-end approach to managing, protecting and extracting the maximum value of enterprise data, typically stored as business records or documents. To accomplish this, CIOs, IT managers and business leaders use a wide range of technologies, management tools and policies to ensure that information is not only routed, stored and used appropriately, but that it doesn’t wind up in the wrong hands causing regulatory compliance and privacy headaches. Veritas’ latest study (PDF), conducted by Ipsos Research, indicates that a great many enterprises are struggling with those very issues.”
Hernandez goes on, “Although 94 percent of the 481 IT, security and legal professionals surveyed for the report said their organizations have a formal information governance program either in place or in the planning stages, few of those programs are living up to their full potential. Only 40 percent of organizations qualify as “high-performers,” meaning they are largely successful in attaining desired outcomes from their information governance programs. The top five desired outcomes, as determined by the survey takers, were protecting highly sensitive information; complying with regulations; determining who is accessing their information; protecting their organization and/or its brand; and finally, creating information policies. Compared to low-performers, ‘high-performers were nearly 50 percent more effective with information governance tools,’ stated the report. In general, high-performers were adept in deleting data that lacks value and are better able to determine the value of individual pieces of data, which in turn informs their information governance strategies.”
Photo credit: Veritas