“Why should I consider an Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) plan?”
The answer is simple. We live in a world where technological demands are increasing more than ever. As a result, the amount of data that companies create has increased exponentially. Organizations are receiving data in many forms in all areas of the organization, including structured and unstructured data. Organizational leaders can use some of this data to help them make more effective business decisions, however much of the data can put the organization at risk.
Implementing an Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) strategy is vital to achieve success with information economies. Preventing storage costs from spiraling out of control and having employees waste their time searching for information needed to do their job effectively should be of paramount importance for any business strategy moving forward. Removing unnecessary data will allow organizations to provide business users with an optimal performance from their applications, giving IT tighter control over storage costs and enabling the legal department to reduce exposure to organizational risk.
ILM will control your data growth by minimizing storage costs and increasing application performance. Additionally, it ensures your organization is compliant with data privacy regulations such as the GDPR & CCPA. Data that is stored longer, or shorter, then necessary creates a liability for your organization. ILM helps reduce this legal liability by ensuring your data is disposed of properly.
What Is Information Lifecycle Management?
According to Gartner, Information lifecycle management is an approach to data and storage management that recognizes that the value of information changes over time and that it must be managed accordingly. ILM seeks to classify data according to its business value and establish policies to migrate and store data on the appropriate storage tier and, ultimately, remove it altogether. ILM has evolved to include upfront initiatives like master data management and compliance. When choosing an ILM strategy, you need to find a solution that addresses all aspects of this.
Benefits Of Information Lifecycle Management
The management and retention of information is so important that an effective information lifecycle management strategy has become a critical component of an organization’s overall approach to controlling cost, ensuring compliance, and minimizing risk. A well-designed ILM program delivers value across several key areas:
Risk Aversion
- Reduces expired or outdated information
- Decreases the volume of unneeded data
- Lowers the chance of overlooking critical information during searches
Cost Savings Through Better Information Management
- Cuts eDiscovery, storage, and legal hold expenses
- Eliminates “digital debris” by improving the ability to locate essential information quickly
- Reduces duplicates and non-valuable data, directly lowering discovery-related costs
Empowering Employees to Focus on Core Business
- Minimizes time spent managing information and responding to eDiscovery requests
- Reduces distractions related to archiving, records management, and eDiscovery
- Lessens the demand on IT and Legal resources
Ultimately, implementing an effective ILM strategy strengthens organizational governance. It introduces clear controls that support the enterprise, enhances the management of information across its lifecycle, and provides long-term operational and compliance benefits for the entire business.
Cost Savings
Studies show that the average knowledge worker spends nearly 30% of their time searching for information (Source: Delphi Group). Beyond direct financial savings, organizations also benefit from meaningful reductions in soft costs. For example, streamlining access to information saves an estimated 18 hours per year by eliminating unnecessary document recreation and preventing employees from “reinventing the wheel.” It also saves roughly 1.75 minutes each day that would otherwise be spent searching for information owned by others. Additionally, reducing the amount of manual administration required to manage discretionary data can return about an hour each month to each knowledge worker. Improvements in eDiscovery processes can yield even greater productivity gains, with organizations recovering as many as 19,922 hours per year.
How To Get Started on an ILM Strategy
Developing a comprehensive ILM strategy can feel overwhelming because of the many issues that must be addressed. As you shape your plan, begin by considering where and how data is stored both in the short and long term, as well as the methods your organization uses to back it up. You’ll also need to evaluate how data can be quickly accessed for e-discovery requests, compliance needs, or other business requirements, and how it can be recovered in the event of a disaster. It is equally important to determine how data will be protected when it resides off-site or in the cloud, when and how it should be moved to more cost-effective storage, and how corporate and legal policies will be consistently applied to guide data retention and disposal.
Regardless of your organization’s size, reliance on digital data continues to grow, making an effective ILM strategy an essential part of your intelligent enterprise journey. Today, ILM is not only a key operational driver but also a source of innovation for organizations across industries.
What Now?
Most organizations grasp the business case for process alignment, though they struggle to establish disciplined process adherence. Digital transformation requires investment and action at all levels. Executives must be willing to challenge the ‘business as usual’ mindset and reevaluate existing business models to realize speed and agility across the entire organization. No organization can undergo a digital transformation using solely internal resources.
Auritas, the industry leader in data and content management, delivers the solutions and business benefits you and your organization expect. The Auritas solution provides a compelling value proposition leveraging more than 150 accelerators, proprietary tools and processes to successfully deliver a scalable solution aligned with your corporate objectives and business requirements.
