Why is organising data so difficult for most companies?
When your network starts to contain a lot of duplicated, outdated, or negligible data, it does suffer the productivity and the organisation of records. The good news is that you can remedy this situation with the right tools.
by Ron Diebels
How does this impact the smooth running of your business?
Because they can contribute significantly to the poor functioning of the company, not to mention information management challenges, such as:
- Security issues: when you have data in your databases and file servers, the more difficult it is to protect them. By eliminating clutter, you can understand what data you have and prioritize your security efforts.
- Productivity of workers: Employees waste time looking for the right information or correcting the work they have already done using outdated data.
- Erroneous decisions: Making decisions based on the analysis of inaccurate facts can lead to poor business results.
- High storage costs: a lot of data stored by companies is redundant, outdated, or insignificant. Others have an unspecified value. management costs are directly correlated with the amount of data stored. It is therefore necessary to organize it to reduce your storage costs.
- Compliance rules: Regulations (such as the GDPR) require tracking and disposal of personally identifiable information (PII). In addition, it is requested that your privacy policy state how you collect, store and dispose of customer data. Having to sort the data hinders your ability to respond quickly and accurately to legal evidence.
How to organise your datasets?
The following steps can help you reduce the amount of data in your network:
- Create a convenient taxonomy for your records. Work with key stakeholders to establish a uniform set of definitions, labels, and groupings so you can easily understand the data you have.
- Establish a policy and set of best practices for processing. For example, establish procedures to purge stale records and trivial information.
- Create a single source for each type of information: it will reduce the confusion associated with versioning.
However, manual classification is not the most optimal solution. It can be too subjective and sometimes inconsistent. Data is always on the move in an ever-changing business.
Switch to a data classification tool
Investing in a file analysis tool ensures accurate labelling.
These solutions help automate critical information management tasks and facilitate strong information governance based on intelligent review.
In summary, data classification solutions can:
- Identify outdated, “unnecessary”, or duplicated data across your entire ecosystem.
- Reduce the risk of security incidents and mitigate the costs of a data breach.
- Streamline regulatory compliance tasks.
- Increase productivity by making it easier to find.
- Improve decision-making through accurate research results.
- Reduce data storage and management costs.
Discover our Titus and Boldon James data classification solutions. For more information on these solutions, please schedule a demo with product specialist at BlueFinch: sales@bluefinch.com
