“Organisations, contending with an overflow of information and managing it across a diverse array of information silos (applications), struggle with what’s known as ‘content sprawl.

“This content sprawl stems from a real challenge—information overload—which can significantly hinder productivity, increase organisation risk and impede business success.

“Every organisation is unique, and its users require applications that serve particular functions or tasks.

“In reality, information silos will persist, but on the bright side is the advent of sophisticated solutions that empower organisations to efficiently discover, organise, manage, and govern the copious amounts of information being generated. We refer to this as Federated information governance,” says VP Sales & Customer Success Andrea Breen.

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Good information governance matters

Information governance provides a framework to ensure appropriate conduct in creation and control of data. Put simply, it’s a set of quality control processes that help organisations proactively manage, use, monitor and protect data across the organisation ensuring security as well as access.

At the end of the day, good information governance is an enabler – supporting efficiency, innovation, insights and cost savings.

Download a free eBook on intelligent information management here.

Content sprawl

Content sprawl is the natural enemy of good data governance.

There are many different impacts of content sprawl, such as holding information longer than required (not disposing of information), not knowing the location of sensitive information and PII (personally identifiable information), difficulty complying with legislation recordkeeping requirements and risk of data breaches.

In other words, data sprawl isn’t just messy – it also has security, financial (maintaining legacy systems, poor user efficiency in finding relevant information) and reputational (implications of poor security) implications.

If no one knows where information is, or the nature of the content that’s being held, something as simple as a malware attack potentially could cripple a public sector organisation.

That’s led to a sea change in how information governance is approached.

“There’s been this shift away from governing information in just one repository, to ‘how can I govern the information in all of these different places without putting an overhead on our users,” says Objective’s Chief Product Officer Jon Palin.

“I want my staff to keep working in Microsoft Teams and Salesforce, but as a risk officer, as a CIO, I want to have oversight and make sure I know exactly what’s happening and have a really clear record of what’s in these systems.”

Objective recently conducted a series of in-depth interviews with CIOs from agencies, across levels of government. Irrespective of the CIO being based in Australia, New Zealand or the UK, the message was clear: they’re worried.

“The challenge of content sprawl actually really scares CIOs,” Palin says. “This idea of content sprawl is very immediate because they know how many repositories they’ve got, but they have no idea what’s in some of these systems. It’s the fear of the unknown that’s driving them.”

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Managing the sprawl with federation

Federated information governance is a management approach based on managing the sum of an organisation’s data as a whole.

A federated approach defines data governance standards centrally, while giving local domain teams autonomy and resources. Ultimately, it sets, shares and applies rules in smarter ways, which is why it’s generally seen as a way of enabling lean and nimble information governance.

One vital concept of the federated approach is ‘manage-in-place’ which allows users to work on information in their native system while having a central place to manage corporate records and information.

This reduces fragmentation and inconsistencies, and helps close the door on leaks.

Federation can offer a game-changing management strategy by enabling multiple databases and content repositories to function as one cohesive unit. This results in streamlined workflows, better collaboration and more informed decision-making.

Download a free eBook on intelligent information management here.

Want to find out where your data resides? Get a personalised report here.

What about if you had a single view of your data? Read more about Objective 3Sixty.

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