Digital Transformation Series Part 3: Streamlining Information Governance

This post begins the third of a six-part series on how digital transformation will impact the future workplace, and businesses. Information governance and regulatory compliance are pressing challenges for every organization. No matter what market you are in or how large your enterprise is, data privacy and information governance is a C-suite concern. Public sector agencies, commercial enterprises and nonprofits all face similar expectations and obstacles when it comes to being compliant in an ever-changing information governance landscape.

Maintaining a comprehensive information governance program is important because organizations must be able to preserve and present information when relevant for litigation and audits. Noncompliance or an inability to produce the requested materials in a timely manner puts a burden on the legal department and could result in hefty fines, legal sanctions and costly discovery fees.

These challenges, and others, are due to the fact that meeting discovery requests frequently requires a significant effort to search for relevant data across the enterprise and produce it to the opposing party. Often, there is simply too much information to sift through, compounded by material that falls into the category of what is commonly referred to as ROT (redundant, obsolete and trivial data). This scenario can hinder your legal process, while a robust, unified information governance program can help make it more efficient and cost effective.

Data breaches and cyber-theft are also major concerns. As a result, organizations are taking defensive and offensive measures to protect the privacy and integrity of their information. The trend from both a regulatory as well as an operational point of view is toward more comprehensive, transparent and unified information governance policies and procedures.

How can more effectively meet these and other critical challenges? On way is to streamline your information governance practices and procedures. In my next post I’ll focus on some key steps to consider before applying any automation to your information governance and compliance activities.