How Broken Integrations are Undermining Your Information Governance Strategy

Data, documents, and information come at us at record pace these days. Which makes a robust information governance strategy not just a luxury, but a necessity for many businesses. Whether in government, education, or law, leaders recognize the critical importance of managing client information effectively to ensure compliance, mitigate risks, and unlock valuable insights. Even the most intentionally crafted information governance strategy, however, can be severely compromised by a silent saboteur: broken integrations. Fixing these broken integrations is essential to compliance, information lifecycle management, and strategic decision-making.

Disconnected Systems = Hidden Compliance and Risk Management Costs 

Think of your IG platform as a central nervous system. Integrations are the neural pathways that allow different systems, applications, and data repositories to communicate. When those pathways fail, the entire system suffers, resulting in:

• Increased storage costs and poor retrieval due to over-retention
• Data loss and legal exposure from premature deletion
• Hindered compliance due to fragmented datasets
• Delayed responses to regulatory or eDiscovery requests

Information governance is most valuable when it can enforce policy across multiple repositories, DMSs, cloud shares, physical archives, etc. That workflow breaks when integrations do, leading to inconsistencies, inaccuracies, and ultimately, a failure to achieve healthy movement in your information governance platform.

The impact of these connection break downs is far reaching. Consider the implications for information lifecycle management. If your content management system doesn't properly integrate with your archiving solution, any of the following are potential concerns. 

1. Critical records might be retained for too long, resulting in 

• increased storage costs
• difficulties retrieving documents 
• data overload
• potential security breaches.
  

2. Essential data could be prematurely deleted, 

• opening up your firm to serious legal ramifications
• hindering business intelligence efforts, and decision-making
  

3. Increased difficulty maintaining compliance and risk management. When data gets isolated due to faulty connections, this lack of visibility makes it challenging to 

• identify sensitive data 
• enforce security policies
• respond effectively to regulatory requests 

Beyond compliance, broken integrations drain IT and governance teams. Manual workarounds and data transfers consume time, trigger help tickets, and frustrate end users. This is especially costly in sectors like legal, where every minute lost is billable time gone. 

The AI Blind Spot: How Broken Integrations Lead to Bad AI

The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers tremendous potential for enhancing your information governance strategy. Modern IG platforms increasingly promise AI-powered capabilities. These tools can automate data classification, identify anomalies, and even predict potential compliance risks. But you can’t train AI on chaos. Poor integration leads to fragmented, low-quality datasets. You don’t want to train AI on every draft, duplicate, or outdated file - especially when compliance and decision-making are at stake. As our Sr. Vice President of Information Strategy puts it, "You can't expect AI to deliver meaningful insights when it's trying to make sense of a broken data landscape. The foundation simply isn't there." 

Engineering Reliability into Your Information Governance Strategy

At Future in Tech (FiT), we understand the critical role that seamless integrations play in the success of your information governance strategy, because everyone on our team has a background in Information Governance or a related field. We’ve taken our expertise and engineered reliability into the very core of FiT Governance. We don’t just connect systems, we make sure your integrations remain stable and reliable, which allows information to flow accurately and consistently across your entire organization.

We built our Information Governance system differently. 

• Intentional integration choices: We avoid “Frankenstein systems” with 5+ loosely connected products. Our codebase allows seamless, secure integration with leading DMSs and cloud systems.
• Configurable, not customized: Custom solutions break cloud stability. Our platform is highly configurable, flexible to user roles and department needs, but with one unified codebase. 
• Streamlined experience: The whole system is built for clarity and ease: 3 clicks or less to get where you need to go.
• Ongoing monitoring and support: Proactive alerts and support ensure integrations continue working, even as external APIs or software change.

If your current system can’t do the same, broken integrations are just a matter of time. And the longer they persist, the more they cost: in risk, lost time, missed insights, and broken trust. See how FiTs Information governance system can help you build a future where your data works seamlessly for you. Book a demo today. 

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