Why organisations should act now to implement sustainable information governance

For years, we’ve heard that the digital age is coming and to prepare. Many would have thought that it would be an easeful transition, taking place over time. Many organisations would have planned for gradual steps to be taken to implement digital transformation. No one could have predicted that by 2020, organisations would have to pivot rapidly in order to enable digital processes and remote working. The events of COVID-19 took the world by surprise and have changed ways of working forever.

2020 has ignited an information revolution

Information has been hailed as the new oil – an abundant resource that provides fuel for sustainable digital transformation. However, 2020 has seen information evolve from more than just a resource. It has ignited an information revolution.

The revolution has led to a number of unexpected benefits and opportunities. With the onset of remote working, the use of collaboration tools has grown exponentially. In April 2020, Microsoft Teams grew to over 75 million and Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella observed “We have seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months.”

The challenge? An explosion of information everywhere

While these tools have made it possible for organisations to continue to work during lockdowns and restrictions during the pandemic, they do pose challenges. They have initiated an explosion of information everywhere.  With so much information being exchanged through various platforms and teams, how can you retain it and tap into it as a resource?

Some organisations are now reviewing how are they capturing and tapping into this information. How many silos of information are being created? How many hours are users wasting manually searching for information? What is the cost of not effectively controlling information as a resource? 

As this has not been a slow change over time, but rather a scramble to pivot, organisations may, in the future, experience overwhelm effects as to how their information has been managed. If they haven’t done so already, organisations need to act now in order to manage their records, and prevent distortion and breaches.  

Another important consideration that all organisations should be keeping front of mind is retrospective governance – how is the information captured in full context and how can it tell its full story beyond its lifecycle?

Expanding digital collaboration presents serious challenges for government agencies and regulated industries that are the custodians of confidential personal records and highly sensitive information and must manage a complex set of risks.  

Organisations should act now to implement solutions

While this rapid change and digital transformation is overwhelming and while performing the task at hand may seem like a priority, it could be more productive in the long run to take a step back and look at how information is being managed and implement a solution.

The solution is to deliver governance everywhere, without a second thought for the end-user. Ensure compliance policies across all information sources, that retain information in a single source of truth, and avoid the creation of silos. If governance is delivered in the background, without ‘friction’ for the end-user, it becomes truly sustainable – ensuring that all information being created now, can be tapped into as a resource for years to come. 

Objective has listened to the feedback of government customers on their concerns as to how to govern information shared with Microsoft Teams, and how that information is captured back into the organisations’ repositories. One challenge in particular, has helped to shape the solution which is now on the market today: Objective Gov365. 

Objective Gov365 offers governance over Microsoft 365 platforms like Microsoft Teams and works stealthily in the background to capture information back into applications such as Micro Focus Content Manager. It provides greater visibility as to who did what and when, provides secure internal and external collaboration, and surfaces relevant shared data.To learn more about the information revolution and sustainable governance, download our Insights Paper: “Thrive in an Information Revolution: Why organisations should act now to implement sustainable governance”.

Learn more about Objective Gov365 for Micro Focus Content Manager here.

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