In conjunction with its Information Governance Council meeting, IBM today announced
new data protection software, a line of consulting services and
resources and previewed information monitoring software to help
organizations expand their use of trusted information to improve
decision making.
Today, the most critical asset to any organization is its
business information. Organizations are struggling to use huge volumes
of information for better business outcomes. At the same time, the
number of high profile examples of data mismanagement is growing, making
the need for proper oversight and use of information key to success.
A recent
study from the IBM Institute for Business Value found having
superior data governance is critical to the success for top performing
companies. By a factor of three to one, the study found that top
performers were much more sophisticated in their approach to governing
organizational information relative to lower performing companies (42
percent versus 14 percent).
To help organizations address information
governance – the processes and policies by which a company oversees
access and use of their information — IBM is unveiling IBM Optim Data
Redaction and a technology preview program for IBM InfoSphere Business
Information Monitor.
Based on work from IBM Research and technology gained during
the acquisition
of Guardium, InfoSphere Business Monitor tracks the quality and
flow of an organization’s information and provides real-time alerts of
potential flaws. For example, if a health insurance company was
analyzing profit margins across different product lines (individual,
group, HMO, Medicare, etc.), decision makers would immediately be
alerted when a data feed from a specific geography was not successfully
integrated.
Also based on work from IBM Research, Optim Data Redaction
protects an organization’s information by automatically recognizing and
removing sensitive content from documents and forms. For example, a
customer’s credit scores in a loan document could be hidden from an
office clerk, while still being visible to a loan officer
As part of today’s announcement, IBM Global Business Services
detailed a number of expanded
offerings for information governance and formally announced IBM
Global Business Services’ Information Governance Center of Excellence
(COE). Within the new Business Analytics and Optimization area, the COE
has over 250 professionals supporting clients in multiple industries
around the world with deep expertise in the design, development and
deployment of information governance initiatives.
The dollars and sense of information governance
More and more organizations are turning to governance to do more than
meet compliance regulations. "At Chevron we believe that good
information governance will help us drive concrete savings to our bottom
line," said Sebastian Gass, Chevron. "We have just begun implementing
our information governance strategy and are on track to deliver millions
in saving by optimizing how we use our key information assets."
"Information governance has traditionally been perceived as a
necessary task that focuses on financial, compliance and regulatory
issues," said Arvind Krishna general manager, IBM Information
Management. "IBM’s information governance strategy combines new
software and services with the building blocks companies already have in
place to make governance an enterprise wide topic that drives
significant growth."
The flow of trusted information
As information flows through an organization, there are many points
at which disruptions in quality, protection and management can occur.
Information governance provides the framework to ensure that information
can be trusted and creates a solid foundation upon which other
technologies can be based.
Breakdowns in information flow and accuracy lead to bad
business decisions and compliance failures. The health of an
organization’s information depends on understanding the dependencies
between various information assets like databases, content repositories,
reports, and business applications. InfoSphere Business Information
Monitor automatically detects the connections and relationship between
data sources and reports ensuring that when something goes wrong in one
area users are notified of all possible implications.
Security and privacy also play a key role in developing a good
information governance strategy. IBM Optim Data Redaction helps
reduces an organization’s risk by removing sensitive data without
impacting the organization’s ability to use the information. Optim Data
Redaction also allows organizations to balance the speed of automated
extraction with the precision of human review making it easy to ensure
the right information stays private.
IBM’s expanded portfolio of information governance consulting
services provide clients with tools and methodologies to define, develop
and deliver a coherent, consistent and valuable structure to manage
their valuable information. This includes assessment offerings,
organization design and development consulting, policy development and
implementation services.
