Managing Information, Enterprise Content, Data and Electronic Records

In an environment of increasingly complex regulations and comprehensive audits, regulatory agencies are penalizing companies for not adhering to information governance rules and not producing records in response to audits and investigations. In one notable example, a multinational bank incurred fines that totaled nearly $19 million for separate infractions related to inadequate compliance safeguards and poor electronic records management. Similarly, a leading financial services company drew a $7.5 million fine for email and retention system failures.

The threat posed by noncompliance is a powerful impetus for executives to pay attention to what is kept, for how long, where it is kept and who has access to it. Ensuring the integrity, reliability and long-term availability of corporate records is no longer optional.

A Rising Tide of Corporate Information

Employees, information systems and the explosive growth and complexity of data contribute significantly to corporate exposure. Corporate records are scattered across business units in disparate repositories, on different platforms and in different formats. This problem is compounded by mergers and acquisitions, the deployment of departmental solutions and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies. Given these challenges, how can enterprises intelligently manage their information with reliability, predictability, and transparency for successful governance and compliance?

Of the critical business systems that manage corporate information, perhaps none are more important than enterprise content management (ECM) systems. They help organizations manage information in accordance with information governance rules. While a single system would be ideal, it is often not practical. Converting original content from legacy systems typically requires the content to be altered, which may make those records inadmissible in a court of law. The process to convert content is also expensive, time-consuming, resource-intensive and, most of the time, impractical, negating the benefits of consolidated content.

Alternatively, businesses could opt for a federated ECM system with a robust content and data aggregation and integration solution that is OASIS Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) certified. Such a solution provides authorized users a single, consistent interface for fast, easy and secure access to a wide variety of business critical content and data. Using a system of record to aggregate and integrate information, instead of converting it, not only makes content manageable, but also admissible in court.

In selecting a federated ECM system, businesses should look for an open architecture based on standard Web services to ensure interoperability; out-of-the-box adapters to various content and data sources; an easy-to-use mapping facility to resolve indexes and formats across repositories; and the ability to add fit-for-purpose ECM modules to the foundational system, e.g. electronic records management. Other important features include the automatic transformation of content for multiple presentment options, flexible security and Web-based interfaces into other business applications.

Ensuring Compliance and Mitigating Risk

While federated ECM can solve the need for a centralized view of all content without migration, enterprises still need an automated way to meet corporate content policies, ensure regulatory compliance and mitigate audit and litigation risk.

Manual records management processes are error-prone, expensive and impractical. An automated electronic records management module working in tandem with the federated ECM system will treat all corporate information equally; manage records in place without migration; identify and associate related or supporting content; classify records and assign retention policies; and store and/or index content in a repository of record. This is especially important when enterprises need to classify, retain and dispose of the millions of electronic records that are frequently and automatically created by high-volume enterprise systems running business applications.

The end result is a federated ECM and electronic records management solution that automatically captures native content and data from line-of-business applications, dynamically creates records and manages petabytes of electronic information. Organizations can then use current systems in place and eliminate any need for manual records declaration and maintenance.

Auditing and Balancing Content

Businesses also need to audit and balance information across platforms to verify that content is accurate. For example, when goods are received at a warehouse, the goods receipt is added to the integrated repository. The repository then automatically looks for an out-of-balance condition, such as the invoice in the system not matching the goods receipt. If an out-of-balance condition is detected, then the repository takes action by sending a notification or initiating a workflow process. Based on this automatic data validation, both system data and reporting content is assured to be balanced and accurate. This minimizes risks, ensures compliance and reduces costs associated with inaccurate information.

Managing corporate information in place, federating ECM and electronic records management, and having audit and balancing mechanisms to ensure content and data accuracy is a sound approach to successfully managing corporate information and risk, as well as avoiding compliance violations and fines.

Instead of trying to find one vendor to convert and manage all corporate content and data in one system, companies can continue to utilize existing systems with a federated ECM solution that provides a single view of all originally formatted enterprise content in place.

Don’t wait for that next compelling event. It may be a multimillion dollar fine.

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