Mastering data management

An Executive Interview with HP Software IM Group

The business-critical information swishing around in an organisation’s systems needs to handled, stored and utilised properly to achieve the best results. CXO speaks to HP’s Erik Moller to get the lowdown on dos and don’ts when managing data.

CXO. Organisations have had to deal with an explosion of information in recent years. What difficulties and opportunities has this posed?
Erik Moller. Information is the lifeblood of an organisation. Providing the right information at the right time is a critical success factor for compliance, risk management and competitive strength. Reliable information management maximises business insights for improved decision making, collaboration, productivity and customer service.

But as the amount of structured and unstructured data grows, the problem of managing this information becomes more difficult. Data is often stored in lots of sources in many systems and organisational departments, both internal and external. Unlocking this information and ensuring that it is safe and secure is a huge challenge that needs to cross the boundaries of technology, people and processes. Without efficient information governance companies are exposed to high risks and financial loss.

In order to turn information into a strategic asset businesses need to manage data in an effective way with compliance and e-discovery solutions, paper- based process automation, business continuity and availability technology as well as business intelligence.

CXO. What are the key drivers for introducing an information management solution? 
EM. Information needs resources around it to enable its protection and utilisation. So a key driver in implementing an effective information management solution is information governance. Information governance is a strategy to encompass legal standards and good practice so that organisations can respond more effectively to customer and industry requirements. It covers all electronic, paper or any other form of media relating to person identifiable and corporate information.

Good information governance results in higher profits and faster time-to-market. Businesses can increase operational efficiencies, respond to customer requests more efficiently and lower the costs of meeting regulatory needs. Business continuity forms the foundation of an effective governance practice. But there is no one-size-fits-all approach to information governance. Every company must configure their own governance programme based on their individual needs.

CXO. What are some of the common mistakes that businesses make when dealing with the exponential growth of data?
EM. The most common way to deal with the information explosion is to throw storage hardware at the problem. However, adding more capacity and not dealing with the core problem ultimately fails when the management tasks become gigantic or a company does not comply with industry regulations, which can result in enormous legal costs or even a court case.

Increasing storage is not always the best solution. Through data de-duplication organisations can ease storage requirements, protect their data, recover lost files more quickly, and reduce storage capacity usage bills. However, the traditional approach is to put the head in the sand and act as if nothing needs to be done about it. But in order to remain competitive, companies need to keep up with increased pressures to supply better information. With the right policies, processes and technology in place, the information explosion can be tamed and organisations can use their data to gain better business insights.

CXO. What do companies need to be aware of when implementing an information management solution?
EM. Best practices show that the return of investment of implementing an information management solution is substantial. It is crucial that companies recognise a failure to manage the information explosion strategically can be a costly mistake.

The success criteria can be summarised in the following: Organisations should:

• Work cross functional to set the right information management policies
• Signal importance of information management to all staff
• Automate as many of the processes as possible
• Implement a technology solution that scales with their business needs

Erik Moller is the Marketing Director in Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) for the HP Software Information Management (IM) Group. He is responsible for driving IM’s EMEA region’s marketing strategy and execution. This includes responsibility for marketing campaign planning and execution, sales support, regional product marketing and IM product evangelism. Moller has a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from The Royal Institute of Technology (Stockholm, Sweden).