What is information management?

Organisations of all sizes must effectively manage their physical and digital records. Refraining from doing so not only inflates costs. It also invites regulatory penalties, impedes decision‑making, exposes sensitive data, and erodes stakeholder trust.

Considering the increasing number and complexity of digital information, organisations require structured information management to maintain accuracy, security, and accessibility throughout the data lifecycle.

Continue reading to learn more about core information management principles, organisational benefits, and implementation best practices.

Information management: An overview

Information management is the organised practice of capturing, storing, organising, and using information efficiently to meet business needs. It’s an overarching discipline that coordinates people, processes, and technology to control how information is structured, processed, delivered, and utilised for management and decision-making purposes.

This discipline covers all types of information, both digital and physical, across its entire lifecycle — from creation or acquisition, through custodianship and distribution, to eventual archiving or disposal.

Information management vs. data management

Data management handles an organisation’s raw facts and figures to keep them reliable and available for use. It covers processes to collect, store, organise, and maintain data so it remains accurate, accessible, and secure throughout its lifecycle.

Although closely related, information management and data management differ in scope and focus. Data management is narrower, dealing with raw, unprocessed data. Information management is broader, concerned with interpreting and utilising that data to produce meaningful information and insights. In practice, data management provides a foundation of high-quality data — ensuring data is correct and well-structured — and information management leverages this foundation to generate value.

These two domains overlap: Many view data management as a subset of information management, and sound data management supports effective information management. Together, they help organisations govern information assets from raw data to actionable knowledge.

Benefits of information management

Information management provides organisations with multiple advantages, ranging from enhanced operational efficiency to streamlined regulatory compliance. Through systematically organising and securing data, businesses can streamline processes, reduce costs, and make more informed decisions.

Business continuity

Effective information management ensures resilience and rapid recovery from disruptions. It includes robust disaster recovery planning and backup strategies that enable organisations to quickly restore data and maintain operations, even after catastrophic events. Notably, companies with reliable backups survive ransomware attacks 96% of the time. 93% without a plan fail within one year of major data loss.

Secure physical and digital storage

Information management uses secure storage protocols for physical documents and digital data. Physical safeguards — such as locked facilities with fire protection and restricted access — protect paper records from theft or damage. Digital measures, including encryption and access controls, prevent data breaches. Moreover, redundant backups and offsite storage keep information available after hardware failures or natural disasters.

Regulatory compliance

Information management helps organisations meet legal and industry-specific requirements by systematically controlling data handling, retention, and disclosure. For example, automated retention schedules purge outdated records and function to reduce legal risks. Access controls and audit trails establish accountability during inspections and audits.

Noncompliance with regulations — such as the Australian Privacy Act, GDPR and HIPAA — can result in fines, litigation, or reputational harm. Aligning processes with standards, businesses avoid penalties while fostering trust with stakeholders. Transparent data practices also ensure compliance with evolving privacy laws, protecting sensitive customer, employee, and financial information throughout its lifecycle.

Data accessibility

Organisations gain significant advantages when they ensure easy access to information for authorised users. In practice, standardised repositories and indexing methods streamline the search for business-critical documents. This supports collaboration and expedites decision-making. It also promotes knowledge sharing across departments.

Similarly, comprehensive metadata and versioning controls allow employees to locate and reference accurate records — preventing errors. Ready access to information increases productivity and supports innovation. Plus, it also strengthens customer satisfaction.

Cost savings

Information management drives significant cost savings across storage, labour, and infrastructure. Organisations spend up to 3% of revenue on paper-based processes — digitising documents and workflows recoups these costs. Notably, storing digital files costs approximately 2.8 times less per document than paper archives.

Centralising information also saves labour: efficient search and retrieval prevent wasted time that can consume 10% of salary budgets. Information management tools automate workflows and eliminate redundant data, cutting operational inefficiencies and lowering overhead.

Lifecycle data governance

Lifecycle data governance manages information from creation and active use through archiving to final destruction. It functions to align information handling with organisational policies and compliance requirements. Governance measures include systematic classification, enforcement of retention schedules, version control, archival preservation for long-term value, and secure disposal of unneeded data.

Regulatory frameworks — including ISO 15489 and ARMA’s Generally Accepted Recordkeeping Principles — guide these processes to ensure consistency and legal compliance. Organisations increasingly deploy automated tools to enforce classification, retention, and disposal policies uniformly.

Scalable infrastructure

Information management systems scale by using modular architectures and distributing data across multiple servers or cloud nodes. These architectures increase capacity without compromising performance.

Cloud-based resources provide elastic computing that expands on demand, allocating storage and processing to handle rising data volumes and user loads while maintaining consistent performance.

Implementing an effective information management strategy: 6 Best practices

A robust information management strategy requires systematic planning, disciplined execution, and alignment with organisational objectives. Adopting proven methodologies, businesses can optimise data utility while mitigating risks associated with loss, breaches, or misuse.

Below are key practices to ensure information remains secure, accessible, and compliant throughout its lifecycle.

The Iron Mountain solution

As a leader in information management, Iron Mountain can help you secure and manage your information throughout its lifecycle — supporting regulatory compliance, operational efficiency, and cost savings. With Iron Mountain InSight Digital Experience Platform (DXP), you can also leverage advanced AI capabilities to gain a competitive edge.

Insight DXP is a scalable, end-to-end platform that automates manual processes using AI. It enables audit-ready compliance and ensures information remains accessible and useful. Moreover, it enables you to seamlessly integrate comprehensive digital and physical content management, intelligent document processing, workflow automation, and information governance capabilities into existing environments — supporting digital transformation initiatives.

This platform, backed by Iron Mountain's more than 70 years of records and information management expertise, offers comprehensive physical and digital information management tools. It improves existing processes and operations while enabling you to scale and grow.

As noted by Nathan Booth, Product Manager of Amazon MGM Studios, “Iron Mountain InSight DXP’s generative AI integration with content management has the potential to provide us with enhanced visibility into our assets, allowing us to make quicker and easier business decisions.”

Learn how your organisation can experience these benefits. Contact an Iron Mountain team member today.