Breaking Down Technology & Data Silos for Better Governance

In a cloud-driven system where almost anyone can “spin up” a shared environment to collaborate, it’s easy for client related data to end up outside of your central file system, creating technology and data silos. These technology silos mean organizations don’t know what they have or where it is, opening them up to risk and burgeoning costs anytime files need to be found and transferred. The best way to break down data silos and ensure defensible retention and disposition is through an audit. 

The challenge of siloed tech 

Technology silos are a blindspot for many organizations. It’s assumed that everything is in the DMS, and so organizations focus their governance policies there. For most, however, only governing the DMS is like only cleaning one room of the house but thinking you’ve cleaned the whole thing. 

Policies only help so much 

Many organizations think their governance policies will save them. If a policy states files must be kept on a certain drive, then that’s where everyone will keep them. The challenge, of course, is that files are so easily moveable, and shared spaces so easily created. 

And then there’s the challenge of “managing up”. It’s not uncommon for senior leaders to be the biggest rule breakers of such policies, valuing expediency in client relationships and forgetting the risk it opens them up to. When those in charge break the rules, those whose job it is to enforce the policy often feel helpless or unsure how best to address the issue.  

Why silos feel urgent 

Data silos aren’t “new,” so why do so many organizations care now? To start with, regulations in many industries are becoming more stringent. While law firms are not heavily regulated, their clients’ industries are. Firms are regularly asked to use a client’s outside counsel guidelines to manage the client’s files within the firm. They may be required to store them in a specific location, destroy them, or even give them back. If a firm doesn’t know where they all live, it becomes impossible to follow the retention requirements. 

For law firms, cost is another factor. Specifically the cost of storing the same file in multiple places, and the cost of finding files when it becomes necessary to move matters, such as during employee transitions. 

Artificial intelligence is also a driver. As organizations seek to have value-producing, defensible AI in-house, it becomes key that the best data is easily available to train the model. 

Why audits are the solution 

The biggest benefit to audits is that they allow you to “get your arms around” your information governance. Here’s how they do that. 

Audits produce easily understood results. They show not just what exists, but the actual contents. Knowing what you have means you can take appropriate and effective action. 

Audits find tech silos. You might think you know where everything lives - audits will show you if you’re right. They’re able to find “siloed” environments - spaces created for specific purposes but that lack oversight - as well as dark data. 

Audits give control. Once you know what you have and where it lives, you can move data and documents that are currently “living” where they shouldn’t. You can update policies about where certain files should be kept. And you can decide if certain spaces - such as a network share - need more safety parameters.

Audits show progress. One of the conveniences of audits is that you can run them at different stages of the lifecycle of a project, allowing you to see what’s changed (or what hasn’t, but should have). 

Audits smooth out matter mobility. Changing personnel can mean a labor and cost intensive process to find, organize, and move the appropriate files. Auditing with a system like FiT’s smooths out the process, decreasing time and money spent on matter mobility. 

Audits improve defensibility. If you can “attack” silos and get rid of them strategically, or move documents into areas that are more governed, then you can more defensibly retain and dispose of them. In essence, you’ll have won the fight against tech silos.  

Where to Perform Audits 

FiT recommends performing whole system audits when feasible, as they allow you the most comprehensive view of what lives where. They are especially good at finding documents living in shared environments created for specific instances and bringing those documents into centralized storage, like a DMS. 

We’ve also seen many organizations choose to tackle their network drives of late. These spaces don’t allow for a lot of natural control, have no native tools that help govern them, and are more vulnerable to data attacks, all of which makes them a hotbed of risk. Audits of network drives are helping many organizations catch information that needs to be stored in a higher security environment and decrease storage costs by getting rid of ROT data. 

Challenges to Effective Audits 

Audits are a complicated process. As FiT’s Sr. Vice President of Information Strategy, Jim Higdon, puts it: “[organizations] must do the dance between change management, internal security, and internal and external governance frameworks.” Which makes finding the right partner and using the right system crucial for an effective audit. A platform like FiT’s can help you ensure that no one’s gaining access to information they shouldn’t during or after an audit, while juggling internal and external frameworks. After all, the point of an audit is to decrease the risk facing your organization - and a mismanaged one can do the opposite. 

Audits are a big undertaking. But they’re also one of the most effective ways of dealing with tech silos and getting unstructured or mismanaged storage areas defensibly governed. If you’re ready to take control of your data and storage systems, get in touch with our team to begin the audit process. 

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