Not just Talk: A Practical Information Governance Guide By Practitioners for Practitioners by Sue Trombley

If you are like me, you feel pretty overwhelmed by all of the talk about Information Governance (IG). Webinars, blogs, Tweets, and conferences abound - it's hard to know who to listen to, let alone where to start the process of institutionalizing IG in your organization. And there is no doubt that you should start if you haven't already. IG is a framework of accountability that demands collaboration among functional areas in order to achieve a shared understanding of your information how it should be managed and put to use to support your business goals.

Over the course of last year RIM leaders from several global financial services organizations, with Iron Mountain's assistance, created a Practical Guide to Information Governance. They were compelled to do so in order to establish a common understanding of the purpose of IG not only for themselves, but to share within their organizations and with their peers.

So far, the Guide has been effectively leveraged to clarify what IG means - it's a great leave behind for senior leaders and other potential advocates. It's been used to gain support from internal constituents and even to build a convincing enough case to transition a RIM team report into the Compliance Officer.

Here's why the authors think you should read the IG Guide:

As you know by now, the volume of information continues to explode exponentially and has become more mobile, making the job of protecting it even more difficult as requirements to do so increase. Most organizations are quickly realizing the need to, and value of, managing information more effectively on an enterprise basis. Traditional activities, such as records management, are no longer sufficient to meet the demands of the business or the ever increasing and more complex current legal and regulatory requirements.

The evolution of information management governance is now an essential business requirement to mitigate risk, reduce cost, and increase revenue. With increasing pressure from the many global regulatory agencies, the need for an Information Governance Program is evolving from a nice to have to a must have. In addition to regulatory, customer, and shareholder pressures, legal discovery requirements continue to become more standardized with courts having less tolerance for noncompliance to established standards and commercially reasonable expectations.

Outside of regulatory compliance, market pressure for increased revenue is driving efforts to find creative ways for organizations to leverage the large volumes of information they retain to increase market share, drive revenue, and maintain a competitive advantage. Without effective enterprise Information Governance, business initiatives such as customer relationship management, knowledge worker collaboration, employee and customer mobility, data mining, big data, enterprise search, data and content analytics cannot be maximized or implemented successfully for enterprise success.

Readers of this paper will find helpful guidance on how to manage information related risks and compliance requirements, as well as develop and implement improved information management and governance processes and practices.

In addition to the definition and principles of IG, the major areas of content in the Guide are: a flexible model for IG governance, necessary roles and responsibilities, organizational best practice (with dos and don'ts), and a thought-provoking section on organizational compliance using self-assessments.

Information is your advantage please take advantage of this free resource written by RIM professionals for RIM professionals! You can download your copy of A Practical Guide to Information Governance by visiting http://www.ironmountain.com/Knowledge-Center/Reference-Library/View-by-Document-Type/White-Papers-Briefs/A/A-Practical-Guide-to-Information-Governance.aspx. And for more proven practices and new thinking, visit http://www.ironmountain.com/Knowledge-Center.aspx

LINK:	http://blogs.ironmountain.com/2014/service-lines/records-management-an...
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