Turning IG into ROI

Making Information Governance Analytics Pay Off

It’s no secret that the divisions of a company that contribute to the corporate bottom line drive the company’s business decisions. Efforts to devise and enforce compliance to information governance (IG) may be seen as merely “gate-keeping,” but turning IG into ROI is not only possible—it’s a repeatable and effective way to positively impact your company’s financial future.

Industry studies clearly indicate numerous areas of costs involved in any data storage or file share network system.

ROT: R Is for Redundant

First, there is the inevitable and inescapable storage of duplicated records. A file gets created and saved, and then emailed to a person, who saves it and emails the same file to several other people, who also save the file, and so the story goes. People naturally save everything and rarely delete anything. Creating and implementing a functional classification system in which only one copy of a file is ever stored, eliminates duplicate file saving and the money spent on unnecessary storage.

ROT: O Is for Obsolete

Human nature can cause us to be resistant to cleaning up old files. “What if I need it later? Better to keep everything!” But, holding onto information and records past their usefulness comes at a cost—loss of productivity, important information obscured by both time and money.

Rather than relying on end users to delete obsolete files, IG develops disposition schedules—clear parameters and procedures for the maintaining of information and for its eventual removal or transfer to another location. When put in place, a disposition schedule draws a line in the sand—and makes file cleanup easy and automatic. This also provides a defensible disposition of records, creating an audit trail and reducing legal fees. What’s that worth to your organization?

ROT: T Is for Trivial

Poorly managed and improper file classification systems incur ongoing and sizable costs. Every ROT file makes it harder to find important information. Every minute your employees spend hunting for the information they need to do their jobs costs time and money. Good IG, especially an effective classification scheme that promotes user findability, eliminates the scavenger hunt for files—and saves time and money.

Those savings can also be realized with clear and effective metadata applied in enterprise content management (ECM). Clearly, the ability to find information quickly helps the bottom line