This document discusses the three faces of information governance: context, reality, and opportunity. It provides an overview of the current context of information governance and challenges organizations face with digital information overload. It also outlines the reality that many organizations still struggle with paper records and lack of governance. However, it argues that information governance presents opportunities to create value by reducing costs and risks. The role of information professionals is shifting to focus on driving business value through governance.
5. Most conversations about
Information Governance begin
with
“What do we need to keep
and for how long?”
This is because Governance has
traditionally been defined in terms
of our PAPER legacy.
6. The explosion in the
volume, variety, and
velocity of digital
information means we
need to start the
conversation differently…
“How can we safely and
responsibly get rid of
excess information
before we are buried
beneath our
DIGITAL LANDFILLS?”
11. Senior management is hiding from
the risks.
31% of respondents report that poor
electronic records-keeping is causing
problems with regulators and auditors.
14% are incurring fines or bad publicity.
Source: AIIM Industry Watch
12. Something has to be done
about content
accumulation.
For 29% the response to the
information deluge is “buy more
discs.”
Source: AIIM Industry Watch
22. Information Chaos
Systems of Engagement
and Record misaligned.
Mobile means information
leaking everywhere.
Information coming faster
than it can be digested.
More silos than ever – and
new ones in the cloud
The “business” circumvents
IT.
We’re spending too much
on technology.
Information
Opportunity
End to end process
synchronization.
Governance occurs
regardless of device.
Analytics automatically
categorizes and disposes.
Governance occurs
regardless of location.
IT spend aligned with
opportunities.
Cloud opportunities to save
on legacy.
Business Benefit
Processes transparent to
customers.
Employees and customers
work on their own device.
Static information now at
rest put into motion.
It doesn’t matter where
information “lives.”
A new business/IT
alignment.
IT shifts from a cost center
to value creator.
45. Create a decision framework that analyzes the
risks and rewards of new technologies and
drives decisions with the framework rather
than based on the technologies themselves.
46. Connect the dots. In today’s social world, one
of RIM’s greatest callings is to help make sure
information is managed according to its value,
regardless of its format or location.
Think information logistics (with IT) and
information curation.
47. Drive business value. Good information
management practices directly benefit the
bottom line of the organization.
The reverse is also true.
How we usually sell governance.
According to AIIM’s Information Governance - records, risks and retention in the litigation age…
…in only 15% of organizations is Information Governance “in place, important, and communicated and enforced.”
Reducing risk. This is perhaps the best understood WHY? of information governance. If you are in an industry in which there are either compliance or litigation concerns and costs (uhhh…let’s see…is there one in which these are not a concern?) then the only way to reduce this risk is to have defensible information management policies.
However, this is where the argument for information governance usually stops. Usually this leaves governance in the hands of people with “Information,” “Legal,” or “Records” in their title. In a tight economy in which competitive pressures are constantly rising, I fear that risk alone is a necessary but not sufficient reason to take information governance seriously. Forrester’s Alan Weintraub notes, “Good information governance isn’t just about risk, it’s about making the business more agile.”
Reduce costs. Left to their own devices, the “business” will view litigation, compliance, storage costs related to ever-increasing volumes of information as externalities. They will assume that “someone else” will pay for it, and continue to engage in a content and information consumption binge that will inevitably result in what IBM’s George Parapadakis calls “content obesity.” Per the Compliance, Governance, and Oversight Council, “90% of the data in the world was created in the last two years. We have reached a tipping point: the growth rate of information now far exceeds IT budgets and the processes for governing that information.”
The ONLY way to reduce these costs is by reducing the scale of information being saved. And the ONLY way to do this effectively is through information governance. And the ONLY way to scale information governance is by automating as much of it as possible.
Increasing revenues. Talk to any executive long enough and inevitably something like the following will come up: “We need to increase customer engagement as a pathway to capturing share and growing revenues.”
For many years, the content management industry has talked about “getting the right information to the right person at the right time to make the right decision.” Even though this rationale was overstated in the early era of content management systems, it is now at the heart of the business problem of customer engagement. Information overload and content chaos threaten to overwhelm our ability to understand and act on customer needs. It is through this prism that we need to consider information governance.
Content and information is the currency that flows through all of our core processes.
1242 Reality #5: New Skills Required.
Numbered are the days of the Gestapo IT department that require you to only stuff they approve and support. It’s a new world out there.
IT was a lot about cost reduction, now it is about creating value.
Complexity was job security, not it is about simple and smart
IT was a railroad builder, now it is more like a taxi company. It needs to take this place today, and another place tomorrow. We need it now, not in 6 months.
Most spending was cap ex, now its op ex.
We are also seeing an increased tension between the business and IT, is reflected in these data points from a recent survey by the Harvard Business Review and The Economist
about what CEOs think about their own CIOs:
Almost half of CEOs rate their CIOs negatively in terms of understanding the business and understanding how to apply IT in new ways to the business.
57% of CEOs expect their IT function to change significantly over the next three years and 12% predict the complete overhaul of IT.
Almost half of CEOs feel IT should be a commodity service purchased only as needed.
Or as one of our members said it: CIO now stands for Career is Over.
But the reality is that right now, the majority of the MONEY is on the left side. In 3-5 years, the majority of the money will be on the right side. But how quickly?
Harvey Spencer – How Mobile Capture Can Transform Your Business Process -- Despite continual moves towards electronic documents, paper still affects all business – checks, receipts, and business cards and are just some examples. These documents are being scanned today using cell phone cameras to transform business processes. More specialized documents are being captured by mobile workers, such as truck drivers who have to capture and process transportation documents.
There are approximately 18 million mobile workers in the US today; forecast to rise by 11% to over 20 million by 2018. These workers cover a range of industries and occupations from auditors to salesmen to tax examiners; from claims adjusters to medical workers to meter readers. All of them need to be integrated into today’s real-time business environments using mobile wireless broadband communications. At the same time they need to capture and process physical documents. The capabilities and power of smart mobile devices, cameras, and bandwidth continue to improve; expanding the range of capability and potential applications. We estimate that around $500m a year can be spent on technologies by 2015 to capture business-critical information using mobile devices.