What Is Information Governance & Security?

The Need for Information Governance

Information is a critical business asset. How a company manages it can impact compliance, costs, and legal risk. Here’s why information governance is so vital to your business.

Managing Information Risk and Compliance 

Risk management is how a business distinguishes vulnerabilities and lessens their potential ramifications. Compliance management is how you follow legal requirements and industry standards. They’re related issues, but have distinctive impacts.

Risk management seeks to forecast how uncertainties might keep you from achieving your goals. It comes with an understanding of your targets and potential vulnerabilities in execution.

Compliance management is more defined. It deals with keeping within the parameters set by standards outside your organization. In these cases, noncompliance can have far-reaching consequences.

Enhancing Data Quality and Value 

Businesses can gain from strong data governance, including:

• Heightened data quality
• Minimized legal and compliance risk
• Uncovering the top value of information assets

These can help improve decision making and business outcomes. Breakdowns in enhancing data quality and value can result in many liabilities, including:

• Displeased customers
• Disrupted business operations
• Harm to reputation
• Missed deadlines
• Unsuccessful legal or regulatory obligations and fines

Supporting Digital Transformation 

Most enterprises have or will undergo the integration of new digital technologies. This transformation alters business at all levels and causes a culture shift. For many organizations today, information is often used in ways it never was before.

Key Components of Information Governance

You can break information governance into subcategories that reflect an organization’s approach. This breakdown can help enterprises conceive and plan their information governance framework. Management often falls on the business, IT, and legal departments.

• Data Governance. Information is at risk from acquisition to disposal. Data governance safeguards it from unauthorized use and ensures its efficient application.
• IT Governance. This conventional structure helps ensure IT investments aid business goals. It can safeguard companies from violations of laws and regulations. 
• Records Management. Like data governance, records management is in place throughout the information’s lifecycle. It includes the analysis, design, implementation, and management of automated and manual systems.
• Privacy and Security Policies. They are information governance’s foundation for personal data protection according to privacy laws. They defend against breaches, unauthorized access, and other risks. 
• Compliance Regulations. Businesses must protect data from security breaches. Improved information management can help enterprises align with legal and regulatory requirements. 

Implementing Information Governance

It’s helpful to define information governance and understand its components: It’s a single organizational approach to corporate data and sub-disciplines that were once siloed. Techmate can help implement information governance to best fit your objectives.

1. Initial Assessment
   Once you’ve assessed the current state of your data management, determine your intentions. This includes identifying stakeholders, evaluating your preparedness, and recognizing challenges and risks.
2. Developing a Governance Framework
   Frameworks are essential to data integration, privacy and security, and a sound structure. They must exceed fundamental data quality and management.
3. Information Governance Policy Implementation
   Consider the existing direction in managing information to form your approach to information governance. Experts usually test one-off projects aimed at particular institutional demands.
4. Training and Awareness
   Your workforce should know the best practices for information governance and what they’re responsible for. Training should keep employees current with frequent refreshers as regulations change often.

Roles in Information Governance

Starting your journey into information governance begins with choosing your team. These are critical roles. The right appointments can set your enterprise up for success.

• Information Governance Manager. This person designs, executes, and improves the information governance plan. They should foresee and guide project shifts to maintain compliance, efficiency, and effectiveness. 
• Data Stewards. They manage, sustain, and upgrade data quality and usability. Many people can do this, depending on the extent of information governance. 
• IT and Security Personnel. This position helps you check that your enterprise has the proper security regulations. They’re often part of a team responsible for responding to threats and training employees. 

Best Practices in Information Governance

This list is a starting point for establishing an efficient governance system. With a system in place, you can boost ROI, preserve information assets, and uphold compliance requirements. It should also be cost-effective.

Establish clear policies and procedures — Data privacy laws factor into developing information governance policies. Setting strong policies and procedures also helps with future and developing regulations. 

Schedule regular auditing and reporting — Auditing and monitoring are key to maintaining operational information governance. Not only do they affirm compliance, but they also find action needed for risk mitigation. 

Emphasize continuous improvement — Doing so can decrease cyberattack and data breach risks. Continual improvement also helps you gain stakeholder trust in your data protection capabilities. 

Tools for Effective Information Governance

Who can access your company’s data? Your enterprise likely has incredible amounts of data in its system. Information governance is only as good as the tools used to administer it.

• Data Management Software. These tools give enterprises analysis-ready data for decision-making and other business intelligence. Software helps ensure information is accurate, compliant, and secure throughout its lifecycle. 
• Compliance Automation Tools. Continuous compliance monitoring is a must, and a more robust option than snapshot-in-time audits. Compliance automation means assessments are ongoing and alerts your team when to act. 
• Data Security and Privacy Tools. The strongest options have powerful security features and emphasize decentralized and open-source tools. The user can rank threat models according to their needs. 

Role of AI and Machine Learning in Information Governance

Machine learning algorithms can sift through copious amounts of data to discover models and draw conclusions. Especially in information governance, this capability is valuable. AI helps streamline the process so that relevant data only moves through the EDRM.

AI for Enhanced Data Discovery and Classification

Your enterprise can index the data collected for better searchability. Machine learning models categorize data based on metadata, providing more detailed data about data. It does this through Natural Language Processing methods.

Automating Compliance and Security Controls 

Compliance can consume much of an enterprise’s budget and manpower to manage. Shifting cyber metrics can burden your resources and staff. Compliance automation eliminates most manual administrative work in compliance.

Predictive Modeling for Better Decision Making 

What can happen with an understanding of trends, customer behaviors, and market dynamics? Organizations can make data-driven decisions, maximize resources, and reduce risks for better outcomes. Predictive analytics draws on historical data, statistical algorithms, and machine learning to move forward effectively.

Information governance has become a necessary tool for businesses and enterprises. With the right program in place, your organization can stay ahead of tomorrow’s challenges in this rapidly changing data environment. Techmate can augment your IT staff and execute routine hardware, software, and network projects so that your internal team can focus on creating a mission-critical information governance program.