How to use data to your business advantage.(SELECTED TOPIC)

The retention of data has become one of the most pressing issues facing businesses today. From Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) to Basel II, new laws and regulations introduced by governments and international bodies are forcing companies to address the way they manage data from conception through to disposal. Compliance has propelled storage from back-office obscurity to the top of the boardroom agenda and with its newly raised profile comes increased budgets, the likes of which would have previously been unimaginable for storage architecture.

However, long before compliance was an issue, companies were beginning to realize that data--one of a company's greatest assets--could deliver real business benefits if managed effectively. The risk now is that the pressures of compliance will distract companies from realizing the full business value that can be derived from their data, forcing them to tackle the issues of auditing and protecting data instead of how to use it to their business advantage. But this need not be the case.

Before undertaking any project, managers should develop a four-point plan to understand their storage needs based on the business and legal requirements for their data. By taking time to identify the data that is important to an organization, and understanding how to manage, share and protect it, forward-thinking companies can manage data from its point of creation right through to retrieval.

1. Identify

All data is not equal. The first, and perhaps the most daunting step in data management is to assess which data is important to an organization. This is determined by its usefulness to the business and its associated risk. Identifying which data is important from a business and compliance perspective, what grades of data are stored within an organization, and who needs to see it, are the basic building blocks of a successful data management project. Similarly, taking time to understand the priorities that different parts of the business place on different data, and understanding the process and reporting capabilities that help them use this data effectively is essential. Everything else will stand or fall based on how complete the original data capture is. Decisions based on high-quality information will have better foundations than those based on poor or incomplete information.

2. Manage

Only once data has been categorized in relation to its business value and risk, and how it needs to be accessed and by whom, should consideration be given to the type of storage solution to implement. The new Basel II Accord requires financial service companies to store a vast amount of customer data so they can reduce the amount of capital set aside to ...