Why an Information Governance Plan Is Vital to Business Success

As the volume of data flowing into organizations grows, getting the right information to the right people at the right time to make the best business decisions is a growing challenge. In fact, Statista reports that by 2025 global data creation will hit more than 180 zetabytes, up from 64.2 zetabytes in 2020. Statistics like this make an information governance strategy vital to business success.

According to Gartner, information governance is defined as, “the specification of decision rights and an accountability framework to ensure appropriate behavior in the valuation, creation, storage, use, archiving and, deletion of information. It includes the processes, roles and policies, standards and metrics that ensure the effective and efficient use of information in enabling an organization to achieve its goals.”

In this post, we break down what that all means.

What Is Information Governance?

To help unpack Gartner’s definition, we turned to TechTarget. TechTarget describes information governance as a “holistic approach to managing corporate information by implementing processes, roles, controls, and metrics that treat information as a valuable business asset.”

It includes a defined accountability framework to manage the creation and use of information, its storage and access with controls on information deletion, availability, integrity, quality and security. In addition to making information assets available to those who need them, information governance can also help organizations reduce costs, better meet compliance requirements and become more agile in a fast-paced business environment.

Information Governance vs. Data Governance

According to TechRepublic, the key difference between data governance and information governance is that data governance is focused on the data itself and typically falls under the responsibility of IT departments. Information governance, on the other hand, is focused on how to use the data to create business value.

TechRepublic also noted that the lines between information governance and data governance are beginning to blur with some organizations adopting DataOps practices, combining the two concepts to help businesses generate value from data earlier in the data lifecycle. To learn more about data governance, check out our blog, An Introduction to Data Governance: Objectives, Components and Examples.

Information Governance Principles

ARMA International, a widely recognized advocacy group for best practices in information management, outlines eight principles that should guide your information governance strategy.

Accountability: A senior executive should oversee information governance efforts.

Transparency: Information governance is to be documented in an open and verifiable manner.

Integrity: Information assets must have a reasonable degree of authenticity and reliability.

Protection: Sensitive information assets must have an appropriate level of protection.

Compliance: Information governance programs must be compliant with applicable laws and organizational policy.

Availability: Information assets must be organized to facilitate timely, efficient and accurate retrieval.

Retention: Information assets must be maintained for an appropriate time in alignment with legal, regulatory, fiscal, operational and historical requirements.

Disposition: Information assets must be securely and appropriately disposed of when no longer required.

Role of the Chief Information Governance Officer

As defined by the NAA, the Chief Information Governance Officer’s (CIGO) role is to “establish and maintain an enterprise-wide culture for an accountable and business-focused information management environment.” It’s a role that includes several diverse responsibilities, including:

Leadership: Promoting information and data management policies, strategies and best practices.

Strategy: Leveraging the value of information and overseeing risk management and security.

Technical: Implementing information and data standards, infrastructure planning, developing enterprise-wide digital capabilities and more.

Engagement: Building partnerships and collaborations, facilitating relations between IT and enterprise architecture and cultivating internal and external stakeholder relations.

Data governance strategies vary across organizations, depending on the specific context and business priorities. However, taking a holistic approach to information governance and developing a cross-functional team is paramount to achieving success with information governance initiatives. It is key for CIGOs to create a work environment where subject matter experts and stakeholders across departments collaborate for success.

Information Governance Tools

Gartner defines information governance tools as “a set of integrated business capabilities that helps business leaders and users evaluate and implement a diverse set of governance policies and monitor and enforce those policies across their organizations’ business systems. These platforms are unique from data management and discrete governance tools in that data management and such tools focus on policy execution, whereas these platforms are used primarily by business roles — not only or even specifically IT roles.”

There are many information governance tools available on the market today. Many organizations take a semantic approach where they can relate their metadata to specific business functions using ontological models for basic governance of their metadata, reference data and other data types. We invite you to learn more about Progress Semaphore and how it supports today’s information growth and governance demands.

Information Governance Benefits

From better decision making to improving the bottom line to supporting security and compliance, the benefits of information governance resonate across the entire enterprise. Some of the benefits include:

Better decision making: A well-executed information governance strategy results in data that is more accurate and trustworthy leading to more informed decisions.

Higher quality data: Information governance helps reduce inconsistencies and errors in data, helping to turn it into a strategic business asset.

Increased operational efficiency: By eliminating redundancies and other inaccuracies, information governance promotes better collaboration to drive the business forward more efficiently.

Enhanced security and compliance: Information governance provides a framework that helps define what is required to meet compliance standards and enhance data security. It helps secure sensitive information or trade secrets.

Support for the AI journey: Information governance is critical in upholding standards, contributing to AI governance and supporting more trustworthy AI applications. Read more.

Information Governance Examples

From healthcare, which requires strict data access and management policies through HIPAA and other regulations, to financial services that enforce robust governance policies to protect customer data from cyberattacks along with manufacturing, retail, education and more—business and industry use cases for information governance abound.

Take a deeper dive into use cases in this CioIndex report. And learn how a biotech company leveraged Progress Semaphore to improve knowledge worker productivity, enhance customer experience and satisfaction and optimize their SharePoint repository to manage and display enterprise information using an auto-classification approach.

We invite you to listen to our podcast, Information Governance Report, and explore our information governance solutions to help you get started on your information governance journey.

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