Published on Oct 13, 2020 What keeps your CEO up at night? When running a company, there are so many different factors CEOs need to keep into account. If their employee turnover is too high, they need to look at resources like https://www.qualtrics.com/experience-management/employee/exit-interview-survey-questions/ to see what they can do better. If their profit margins are decreasing, what can they do to change the way the company operates to stop this? If their competitors are growing, they need to see what they do better. The list goes on but according to the 2020 Gartner survey, risk management is high on the list of things that keep them up. With a 39% increase in breach activity, risk management now appears on the top 10 list of CEO strategic business priorities.
High-profile data breaches and consumer privacy concerns fuel this increase. As our lives become more digital, personal information is becoming a commodity. Ever-increasing regulations require companies to rethink everything data related. This rethinking includes:
With so many questions to consider, it’s no wonder data risk keeps CEOs up at night. It really was so much easier when we could keep everything indefinitely, but now there’s so much risk.
Now risky data and non-compliance may keep you up at night. What to do?
Turning to your organization’s information governance (IG) and privacy programs is the place to start. These two programs are typically developed side-by-side as they have many similarities. Through policies, these programs provide answers to the above list of questions. Both programs promote fairness and transparency around what data is being collected, why it is being collected, how it is processed and how long it is retained. IG and privacy programs conduct audits to report on risk reduction successes and where additional mitigation is needed.
WOW, you say! That’s a lot. Perhaps your organization hasn’t put an IG or privacy program in place yet, or it is new.
Information governance experts believe the strongest approach starts with data clean-up to rid your organization of redundant, outdated, and trivial (ROT) content. Using the right technology is paramount to a quick and effective data clean-up project and assures that valuable data is properly maintained and protected. Effective communication and change management is also key.
Beginning your IG and privacy programs is also an ideal time to create a data map. As you begin to manage and secure content, a data map solidifies your findings. This piece is crucial to exposing corporate risk because it provides the following insights:
The right data mapping tool makes operationalizing regulations such as the GDPR and CCPA efficient. You won’t be able to meet requirements if you don’t know where your data is and who has access to it.
Risk management starts with taming the wild-wild west of data management and privacy regulations! When your Information Governance and Privacy houses are in order, everyone sleeps better.
