Risks: It’s time to take control

Introduction: The need for Information Governance

As data proliferates across data centers, both on-premises and in the cloud, IT leaders are grappling with the challenge of storing, retrieving, and disposing of data in unprecedented quantities.

As data multiplies, so do risks. Data security, regulatory compliance, and legal obligations are all risk factors, and the price of poor information governance can be steep. Data loss leads to lawsuits and reputational damage. Fines due to HIPAA, GDPR, CCPA, PCI-DSS, or other regulatory violations are significant. Failure to retain or produce legal documents on demand can expose an organization to adverse litigation outcomes.

Risks also arise from mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures. As corporate structure changes, critical information can fall through the cracks. The same is true when data must be migrated from old to new IT systems. And as an organization grows and its customer base and operations extend into new jurisdictions, risks are incurred when data must be retained and stored according to new rules.

Compounding these risks, many organizations have neither developed an information governance strategy nor implemented information governance technologies. As a result, they retain reams of redundant information, leading to high storage costs, but are unable to locate and retrieve documents when needed, exposing them to potential fines.

Why Iron Mountain?

Despite these challenges, there’s good news: Iron Mountain, a recognized market leader, provides the services and technologies, such as Advisory Services and Iron Mountain Policy Center, that enable organizations to implement effective information governance. Iron Mountain delivers a competitive advantage in these ways:

• Global client base By serving organizations worldwide, Iron Mountain has gained experience working with a wide variety of legal requirements in different geographic regions and jurisdictions.
• Comprehensive services Iron Mountain provides a full suite of managed services for the entire information lifecycle, including data retention, storage, access, and retrieval.
• Integrated technology Rather than a pieced-together collection of point products, Iron Mountain’s information governance technologies and services are integrated in a holistic solution.

The three goals of information governance

Every information governance initiative should strive to achieve three goals:

• Assessment and strategy Understanding the data an organization has: what it is, where it is located, and what risks it contains.
• Governance Establishing Establishing structure and control over data based on location, policies, and compliance requirements.
• Operational excellence Maintaining best practices so that information is retained, managed, and disposed of economically and with minimal risk.