SHORT WHITE PAPER INFORMATION GOVERNANCE: TAKE AND KEEP CONTROL

Transcription

1 TAKE AND KEEP CONTROL JANUARY 2011 WHITE PAPER 1 OF 5 AGILE MARKETING: HOW TO CHANGE THE GAME

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3 .COM HOW TO Gartner describes information governance as a framework for consistent and responsible creation, use and storage of information which: includes the processes, roles, standards and metrics that ensure the effective and efficient use of information in enabling an organization to achieve its goals. 1 In a post-gfc world, CIOs and IT managers are looking for better ways to ensure compliance with internal and external standards, while business unit managers seek smarter ways to reduce operational costs, without affecting results. Intelligent Content Creation systems can help them both - by automating the creation, assembly and distribution of documents. In this paper we show how intelligent document creation systems can: Eliminate chaos and non-compliance by starting with controlled creation Supplement ECM systems by adding rules that eliminate ad hoc errors Bridge information silos to ensure that all data used is accurate and current Create customised, compliant documents by integrating with business applications Improve productivity, free up IT resources and enhance better governance. Governance & chaos The volume of business information generated is growing by about 60% per year, 2 making it ever harder for IT departments to manage both information and its flow between business units and third parties. At the same time, more industry regulations and compliance and e-discovery laws place new demands on IT staff. Much corporate information resides in systems and users PCs. It s mostly unstructured making it harder for IT staff to protect and manage it. Gartner analyst Toby Bell points out size of the problem: approximately 80 percent of enterprise information is unstructured content, 90 percent of which is unmanaged. 3 Content Chaos was the reason 6 out of 10 CIOs surveyed by AIIM in 2010 implemented an Enterprise Content Management system. 4 Yet, while ECM systems are good at managing the document life cycle, their ability to retrieve documents is hampered by naming conventions, location on the network and the like. At best their impact on content chaos can be limited. Governance starts with creation ECM systems (ECMS) weren t designed to manage creation of bulk or ad hoc documents containing common elements. However, it s here at the creation and assembly stage that the greatest exposure to non-compliance occurs. For instance, a user may be unaware that a standard document already exists or perhaps can t find it. The quick fix is to copy and paste standard content into a new document, with the risk that key data like personal details, trading terms or legal constraints are left out. If the document resides and is sent from a PC, IT, corporate or legal departments probably won t know about it until it s gone and too late. Creating and assembling compliant documents is the first step in governance, and intelligent content creation platforms can play a vital role by boosting ECMS functionality. These intelligent systems add specific tools for document creation and a repository for document templates, assembly components and business rules. By ensuring documents are created according to a set of defined rules, Document Management becomes easier to do and better controlled, from indexing to structuring, versioning, storing and retrieving. 1 Debra Logan, Research VP, Gartner Inc. 2 The future of enterprise information governance The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited Management aspx 4 Miles, D, State of the ECM Industry, (2010), AIIM, 3 OF 5

4 .COM With centralised control of content down to individual portions of documents, CIOs can ensure that all templates and content are accurate, up to date and appropriate, virtually eliminating the risk of non-compliance. In addition, the Active Directory for rights and access management centrally controls access to content, ensuring that only authorised users can make key changes. The directory also includes a framework for auditing and reporting on information and document governance to complete the cycle. Silos & governance In most organisations, information repositories are implemented on a departmental basis, resulting in unintended silos that segregate information, ownership and responsibility, and complicate compliance. While the need for integration is obvious, departments are often reluctant to give up ownership and control to the IT department. Intelligent content creation systems can break down the barriers between information silos and connect them in a coherent information network. This can both enhance the usefulness of existing IT systems, including legacy systems, and greatly support governance objectives. The better content creation systems can integrate with CRM, BPM and ECM systems, including platforms like Microsoft SharePoint, Compuware Changepoint, Siebel/Oracle CRM, and HP TRIM Document Management, to provide access to whole of enterprise information. Intelligent content creation systems can also merge information from these business systems with user- or customerentered data to dynamically create and manage individual documents. To do this, the system must be able to: Extract data from the organisation s business systems (including legacy and storage systems) Push data back to where needed (communications, user records, applications, web forms, print servers etc) Output data in any commonly used format, electronic, fax or print-ready. Apart from the obvious benefits for marketing, this automation has big implications for compliance and governance. When combining data from various systems or sources to create customised communications, users often need to rekey data. This is not only inefficient but clearly error-prone. By bridging silos to eliminate this step and using rules and templates to create the resulting documents, organisations can make efficiency and productivity gains, and gain the control needed to meet their information governance obligations. Gains for IT & governance Integrating business applications and databases delivers other benefits too, by extracting more from existing IT investments. This is best shown by a deployment example, CASA, the Civil Aviation Authority of Australia, with: A variety of business applications including HP s TRIM electronic records management system, Siebel CRM and Compuware s Changepoint workflow and resource management platform A vast number of documents dealt with daily, including aircraft registration, flight operations, flight crew licensing, aviation-related correspondence, legal agreements and regulations covering airspace and airports. For CASA, documents, procedures and manuals must be updated frequently, and their accuracy is crucial to air safety. Beforehand, without an intelligent content creation system, the risk of error in vital information was unacceptably high. With such a system deployed, the authority has integrated and leveraged its existing infrastructure and business systems. The intelligent content creation system pulls together data from business systems to populate standard documents, which maximises use of existing systems and minimises human error. The intelligent content creation system also eliminates dependence on valuable specialist IT skills: it provides complete control of form layout design by supporting user-defined conditional formatting and complex paragraph logic. In this way, CASA s business users develop document templates as and when needed. 4 OF 5

5 .COM According to the IT Manager, the process is faster, more accurate and the cost of template implementation, document generation, and web forms design and management has plummeted. 5 When business users work with accurate information and draw on all information resources, they can gain the full context of any situation and respond more effectively. This is what Gartner Inc. calls context-aware computing, defined as the concept of leveraging information about the end user to improve the quality of the interaction since it is now possible to anticipate an end user's immediate needs. 6 This intelligent approach to customised communication is a win-win-win: resource benefits for IT, effectiveness gains for marketing and governance gains for management. Context-awareness enables more effective customer communications, while the rules-based framework ensures that communications conform to the organisation s standards for content, layout and branding. In addition, where users can create their own material within strictly controlled guidelines that are automated, IT resources are freed up for deployment elsewhere. The bottom line Intelligent content creation systems can play a vital role in ensuring better governance of information, and tighter compliance with internal standards and industry regulations. The accuracy of external and internal communications is assured by consistent template control, with changes and updates rolled out in real-time across the entire organisation. The result is improved employee accountability and document integrity, along with reduced risk of exposure to accidental breaches or data loss. Author Phillip Williamson, CEO, Intelledox * * * Phillip Williamson is a software entrepreneur with a talent for seeing emerging trends in technology, and extensive experience in the IT industry in Hong Kong and South-East Asia. He founded bespoke software development company DPM Consulting which created Capabiliti LMS, learning management software used by hundreds of thousands information workers around the world. Phillip now runs Intelledox, a leader in the emerging market of automated document creation & assembly. Phillip has a Bachelor of Science (Hons) degree from the Australian National University. * * * Intelledox Short White Paper: Information Governance: Take and Keep Control Version 3 Revision 1.3 January 2011 Copyright 2011 Intelledox Pty Ltd All rights reserved. Intelledox Pty Ltd owns the Intelledox software and all of its inclusions. No part of the Intelledox system, databases or documentation may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, for any purpose, without the express written permission of Intelledox Pty Ltd. Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of the Microsoft Corporation. Intelledox Pty Ltd 5 P +61 (0) F +61 (0) _intelligent_document_generation/ E sales@intelledox.com 6 W OF 5