Information Management vs. Information Governance

Businesses today are awash with data, requiring complicated processes and safeguards to manage. This leads us to the issue of information management vs. information governance. In other words, what are they, how do they differ, and how do they come together to help you manage your data?

In the past, these policies and processes were confined to sprawling businesses, but today, even small businesses must consider them. With an estimated 328 million terabytes of data created daily, it’s easy to find yourself drowning in an ever-expanding cache of data.   As part of a sophisticated data management program, your business must unify data and information governance to create a streamlined process that deploys and manages data effectively. Here’s what you need to know about information management vs. information governance.

What is Information Governance?

To begin, the information governance meaning is how information is used. It covers everything, including:

• Process management
• System management
• Records management
• Data protection
• Data quality
• Data controls

The goal of information governance is to ensure that information is shared securely and confidentially, making it the heart of compliance with regulations like the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).   As part of creating an information governance and records management system you can rely on, you must examine how information is collected, recorded, stored, and used.

Businesses must then consider other facts, including data access by employees and whether the data is being shared internally or externally. In other words, this is more than just a compliance exercise. Instead, it can provide genuine business benefits. For example, one study stated that information governance can result in an 81% increase in decision-making effectiveness.

Key Features

But where will businesses focus their efforts when defining and deploying their information governance systems? Here are four key features of a working information governance system:

• Data Security – The key to any system is safeguarding. Your data must be secured to guarantee compliance with domestic, international, and industry-specific rules on data, such as preventing unauthorized access.
• Lifecycle Management – Your information governance system will include information on managing data throughout every aspect of its lifecycle, beginning from creation and ending at disposal. However, this is only at a holistic level. Information management will get into the “How.”
• Compliance Management – Compliance management ensures that how you handle data fully complies with policies that apply to your business. For example, healthcare businesses must focus on the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
• Access and Usage – Businesses must set out guidelines detailing who can access information, share it, and utilize specific data within an organization. This is the core of proper data security.

Emerging technologies are increasingly coming to the fore in managing these key features. For example, 40% of businesses have automated processes to ensure that personal information is deleted.

What is Information or Records Management?

Information management is how your data is managed throughout its lifecycle. When examining the difference between governance and management, governance provides the framework, and management pertains to the nuts and bolts. Some of the functions of an information management system include:

• Responding to information requests.
• Managing your archiving policies.
• Deleting data in accordance with your information governance policies.

Essential elements of information management may include automated data capture and complying with internal and external audits. Ultimately, it answers the question, “What information is important to my organization based on our objectives and obligations?”   In short, information management is the lifecycle of all data flowing into and out of your company.

Key Features

So, what is records information management in relation to its features on the ground? If you’re wondering where information management begins, here are four core elements to be mindful of:

• Collection and Acquisition – Strategies for gathering data from internal and external sources. The goal of this element is to absorb data and store it in a structured way.
• Storage and Organization – The techniques and systems to store and organize your newly acquired data. This may include external storage systems and databases.
• Processing – The data processing side of information management discusses turning raw data into meaningful insights and analysis to support your team in making value-driven decisions.
• Data Sharing – The systems in place for disseminating data across your company and outside it. This will include the various protocols to guarantee secure and compliant data sharing.

As you can see, without reliable information management policies and protocols, your business cannot harness its data assets and may even be putting itself at risk of compliance problems.

How Do Information Governance and Management Differ?

Conceptually, information governance is proactive, and information management is reactive. Both work in tandem to ensure that you are making the most of your data while complying with your legal obligations.   Although used interchangeably, they are two distinct aspects of managing the data you create and acquire.

Information governance’s mandate extends much further because it covers records management. Still, it includes functions like compliance, risk mitigation, and making data-driven decisions that will ultimately grow your business. In contrast, records management is merely a part of the information governance umbrella. It focuses on maintaining, using, and securing your data throughout each step of the lifecycle.

Who is responsible for information management and governance? In both cases, it depends. Larger companies may assign separate teams, whereas small businesses may have the same person in charge. However, when it comes to compliance from an outsider’s perspective, the buck always stops with the business. In other words, you.

Key Differences

Understanding the differences between the two is integral to avoiding confusion and ensuring that every base is covered. Here’s an overview of how both work.

	Approach	Level	Objective
Information Governance	Governance is holistic in nature. It concentrates on taking a comprehensive view of data and how it relates across the entire organization.	Information governance takes a bird’s eye view of a business and its data. It establishes the skeleton of your information management processes.	Governance is all about compliance at heart. It ensures that the company is using its data in a way that complies with domestic, overseas, and industry-specific legislation.
Information Management	Management focuses on the specifics of deploying tools and techniques to accomplish the objectives set out in your governance documentation.	Information management focuses on the practical side of achieving the goals set out in your governance policy. This includes the day-to-day execution of handling your data.	Information management homes in on each aspect of the data lifecycle. Its goals are efficiency and accessibility. With successful information management, your employees can access what they need when they need it with minimal friction.

How Do Information Governance and Management Work Together?

When comparing information management vs. information governance, it’s easy to see that one cannot exist without the other. Governance focuses on the holistic side of data but doesn’t provide details on how an organization should handle its data. Instead, it just sets the borders of the sandbox, such as by discussing internal and external policies to help businesses achieve their compliance goals.

Information management fills the spaces with specific techniques and protocols for handling data at every aspect of the lifecycle. With a firm governance policy in place, information managers know what they have to work with when creating these systems. But how would a company go about establishing these systems together to achieve their goals? Here are three broad steps a company must address to bring them both together:

1. Establish Governance – The first step is to develop the policies and frameworks required to create a compliant data management system. This would also include taking legal advice and performing a risk assessment.
2. Bring in Information Management Strategies – Together with your governance committee, you would begin to implement compliant systems covering efficient data collection, secure and organized storage, data processing methodologies, and user access protocols. At this stage, you would also be implementing employee training schemes.
3. Continuous Improvement – The world of data changes constantly, meaning neither governance nor management can afford to stand still. Committing to continuous improvement would include regular audits and updates and opening communication channels to ensure the governance and management teams don’t get siloed.

Of course, there’s no one way to implement governance and management. Every company will have its processes and preferred ways of doing things, but however they do it, they are all aiming for the same overarching goals of compliance, efficiency, security, and improved decision-making.

Bringing Information Management & Governance Together

Records management is an essential facet of every business of every size in every industry. You cannot afford to wing it. If you are struggling to manage your data, you already know how many moving parts are involved. At Corodata, we support thousands of businesses in California through a range of services focused on records management. If you want to learn more about how Corodata can support your records management needs,contact the team now.