Jul 19, 2018

_{By Haylee Fox and Jessica Roberts, Myriad Technologies}

Businesses, and more extensively the world, is full of information.  Emails, tweets, instant messaging, blogs, vlogs, memos, reports, policies, procedures. All this information presents some value to someone.  Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) is about determining and understanding what that value is to an organisation, and then putting a solution in place to help make the most of this information.

ILM is about understanding what it means to have the processes in place for your company to deal with its information. How do you create it; how do you control it; how does your company consume that information? 

In most cases, ILM practices are focussed on controlling information. How do you govern your information? How do you know when a document or piece of information has value, and how do you know when you should keep it or get rid of it? Governance is a critical component of any ILM strategy. Understanding your business needs for retention and disposition are fundamental to establishing good ILM practice.

Popular opinion tells us that ILM is a long and difficult process. And yes, we can admit it has its challenges. However, the risks around not having a successful ILM strategy implemented in an organisation far outweighs the difficulty. ILM allows you to get the right information to the right people at the right time. Having easy access to up-to-date information ensures your team can deliver a great customer experience. It also reduces the marketing spend wastage and helps achieve better ROI. Some risks that ILM combats includes:

•    Litigation – if information within an organisation is not regulated, it may be incorrect out of date or unapproved, which can be harmful in an instance of litigation.
•    Legislation and compliance – non-governed information, that doesn’t meet government legislation and compliance standards, present enormous risks for organisations. 
•    Loss of company knowledge & data – information and data that is not recorded, stored and managed appropriately can cause massive gaps within organisations.

Knowing these risks, the next step is understanding how you can overcome these challenges of ILM. More importantly, how you can succeed! 

Some of the important steps you need to take in your ILM journey are:
•    Understand your information – how should it be created? Who controls it? Where is it consumed?
•    Understand your processes – observe and record the process patterns within your organisation.
•    Understand your governance – who owns the information? What rules do you need to follow? Is there legislation? Compliance? Regulations?
•    Understand what is important to the organisation – this could be anything from knowledge retention, to KPIs. It can be anything!
•    Understand what tools you have – and more importantly recognise what tools you could use.

Do you wish to learn more about ILM, the challenges, the risks, and most importantly some of our personalised tips on how to succeed in your ILM strategy?

Don't miss the webinar!

Join Myriad Technologies Senior Consultant Haylee Fox, and CIO Andrew Austen in our upcoming webinar on Monday 30th of July at 12pm. Register here.

Are you new to the practice of Information Lifecycle Management and do you, or your team need some support in training? View more information on SharePoint, Nintex and Office365 training here!