Companies should engage with their data creators to determine the content and value of the different subsets of information to formulate data archiving policies, which will support better use of the data, says data management software company CommVault South Africa enterprise account manager Bryan Balfe.

“The importance of data and information is more granular than the information technology (IT) department understands, owing to its utility perspective of maintaining daily operations. Legacy pitfalls include archiving all data generated, but this increases costs and legal risks for the company.

“Therefore, the disconnect between data and information policies and business strategy must be closed. In many large corporations worldwide, the new title of Chief Data Officer (CDO) has appeared in companies and on boards to ensure that managing data and information supports the company’s operations and limits its risks.”

Updating data management and archiving policies also enables the business to determine its IT equipment and infrastructure needs, thus aligning IT spend more closely with the business strategy and enabling controlled IT renewal cycles.

Each industry, business and business unit requires different data and data retention.

“Compliance with regulations is not an IT function, and various departmental managers in consultation with the legal department must, thus, ensure that they know where and how the information is stored and processed to ensure that the department is compliant,” emphasises Balfe.

However, greater alignment of IT strategy and individual business unit strategies beyond legal requirements will provide significant value, as IT can develop systems to support and improve various business functions.

“This is why companies should base their policies on the advice of the data creators, while risk management and legal monitoring can be done at this juncture,” explains Balfe.

Exposing IT departments to the inner workings of various business functions enables them to gain a better understanding of the business value of different data, but each department should have an IT representative on the board or attend meetings to provide advice when decisions are made.

“Specifically, IT can then change from having a more utilitarian function of keeping current systems running to being an enabler and developer of business solutions, including for the specific departments.”

Balfe adds that having an IT representative attend meetings ensures that the department in question knows what is and what is not achievable, what data it must store and delete, as well as what is required by other business functions and the kind of data that new systems will require.

He notes that businesses use IT companies, such as CommVault, to advise them on new developments and how to deal with data manage-ment issues.