Grc News & Articles

Business and government use of the World Wide Web is expanding exponentially, said Dr. Timothy P. O’Keefe, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Information Systems and Chair, University of North Dakota to the audience at the ARMA International Conference. He emphasized the need for leadership and collaboration between records management professionals and IT professionals.

Some see Web 2.0 as the solution to all information management problems. Some have suggested Web 2.0 will result in the death of records management as a discipline. O’Keefe stated the Web 2.0 explosion could lead to the change in title from records managers to content managers as a “record” is identifiable by what’s in it rather than the format of it.

Introducing this session was ARMA International’s Executive Director, Marilyn Bier. She opened the conversation by saying that over the past few years, Records and Information Management (RIM) has emerged from the shadows as more and more organizations begin to realize just how important it is to their governance, risk management, and compliance efforts. In that spirit, it falls to the individual professionals to rise to that occasion and to help our organizations evolve from within.

Enter Doug Allen, CRM, ARMA International’s 2009-10 President. To be honest, Allen didn’t enter right away. Instead, his session began with a video, highlighting ARMA International’s tradition of excellence in RIM education. And apparently, that history goes back to 1955 -- with videos presented from the very earliest days, touting the paperless office of the future, and a cute animated sheet of paper called “Scrappy” who served as one of the original mascots of the association. Sound and black and white video changes pace and we enter the modern world of information management, showcasing the association’s active Twitter, Linked-In, Facebook and iConference sites (among other educational efforts). The underlying message: this is not your father’s ARMA International.

This week the GRC focuses on compliance and inserts a little web publishing for good measure.

Recently we reported about the need for professionals to become certified in eDiscovery. Guidance Software has initiated a program that aims to do just that. Their EnCase Certified eDiscovery Practitioner program certifies private and public sector professionals in the use of Guidance Software's EnCase eDiscovery software. In addition, it also measures and encourages a proficiency in eDiscovery planning, project management and best practices.

Compliance, compliance, compliance. It's not that companies don't want to be compliant. They do. It's more that there are many things that complicate the process, like vendors with too much access to private information and virtual environments. Two recent surveys highlight these issues.

Companies today are not always prepared to respond effectively to protect mission-critical operations. And yet when you consider the many standards and regulations they must meet, why aren't companies spending their time to integrate business strategies with Governance, Regulation and Compliance (GRC)-related policies and procedures? The answer often comes down to time and money, and these days there aren't a lot of either to go around.

Archer Technologies aims to offer companies, whether Fortune 1000 or state and federal agencies, a viable solution. The provider of enterprise governance, risk and compliance (E-GRC) software has launched its Business Continuity Management (BCM) product. With its three-in-one approach, Archer looks to help companies improve their GRC programs by seamlessly integrating business continuity management into their IT-GRC and E-GRC initiatives.

This week in Governance, Regulation and Compliance examines the current state of eDiscovery and issues within the oil, gas and energy sector.

There's a lot of anticipation about the upcoming SharePoint 2010 release. But back on Earth, the reality is that SharePoint 2007 has already become a key component of enterprise infrastructure.

In fact, according to a recent IDG survey, 62% of CIOs said that SharePoint was a critical component of their technology portfolio. And these organizations have big plans for expanding SharePoint use in the next year.

Primary areas of growth will be:

• business process management (63%)
• records management (40%)
• web content management (39%)
• application development (35%)

Ed Durst, portfolio manager of the Microsoft Solutions Group at Open Text, says that SharePoint is starting to be treated as a true business application, similar to Microsoft Exchange or SAP. This new status demands new thinking and new practices.

Unplanned Growth Causing Problems

There's bad news along with the good. According to IDG Research's findings, SharePoint growth has been primarily unplanned and there have been some consequences.

Business Management Problems

• Insufficient workflow processes (44%)
• Disorganized content (40%)
• Lack of an over-arching site creation strategy (38%)

End User Problems

• Difficulty searching across multiple SharePoint sites (43%)
• Duplicated document or record copies/multiple content versions (42%)

Durst says there has always been tension between corporate control over and user acceptance of new technologies. With SharePoint, you now have IT managers saying they have a tool users like, they just need to establish better governance and control.

Taking Back the Infrastructure

Before organizations can move to the next level of business capabilities with SharePoint, they need to ensure their infrastructure is solid and will support growth.

Resolving these challenges, along with ensuring the administrative and storage costs costs associated with growing SharePoint don't overcome the organization, are key planning components.

This Wednesday at 2pm ET (11am PT), you are invited to join a webinar entitled Taking Back the Infrastructure: Why Optimizing SharePoint is Critical for Today's Corporations. The event will cover the IDG survey results and how you can implement SharePoint in a way that is cost-effective and well governed.

You can register here for the webinar.

eDiscovery solution services all aim to save customers and companies time and money. Due to the non-linear structure of eDiscovery, there are so many ways to go about making the process, whether it be pre-processing, data collection, filtering, review or post-processing phases, more pleasant for the user.

IBM (news, site) is focused on the analytics part of eDiscovery. Today they announced new IBM eDiscovery software with advanced analytics features. The goal is to help clients not just find information, but have them understand it better.

In a recent IDG Research Survey of 108 CIO's, 82% indicated that they use SharePoint primarily for file sharing and document management. That falls in line with what we understand.

There is much more to SharePoint than file sharing, and CIOs know that -- 62% say that SharePoint is critical to their technology portfolio, and they want to use it for much more in the year ahead.

But implementing SharePoint properly in an organization is not easy -- 55% reported that SharePoint challenges are impacting their business. According to Ed Durst, portfolio manager of the Microsoft Solutions Group at Open Text, there are a number of challenges related to SharePoint implementations.

Records Management Madness

One of these challenges is managing the creation of SharePoint sites. How sites are generated and managed -- or not managed -- is critical to a successful deployment. Implemented incorrectly, SharePoint sites become silos of information, which among other things, makes records management difficult. Durst says organizations are taking back control of the creation of sites through new governance and records management strategies.

Spiraling Storage Costs

Another common concern is the cost of supporting a SharePoint environment. Out of the box, there is a linear relationship to content and the cost of storage infrastructure for SharePoint sites. Organizations are finding themselves buying hardware to keep up with user demand. The key becomes building the right SharePoint infrastructure, so that costs to support the environment level out or become less.

With over 53% of surveyed organizations using SharePoint enterprise wide today, the need to optimize SharePoint environments is critical.

Wednesday, August 26, at 2pm ET (11am PT) you can join Ed to discuss the findings of the IDG survey and how you can better manage your SharePoint infrastructure.

You will learn how to:

• Generate and manage SharePoint sites, eliminating information silos
• Reduce the cost of SharePoint dedicated hardware
• Realize your goals for using SharePoint as a leading content and document management system

With big uptakes expected for SharePoint in the areas of records management (40%), application development (35%) and business process management (63%) in the next 12 months, having a  SharePoint infrastructure you can build on is critical.

You can register here for the webinar: Taking Back the Infrastructure: Why Optimizing SharePoint is Critical for Today's Corporations.

The Governance Portal, a software platform by Protiviti, has received an update. Version 3 offers enhancements to a GRC tool aimed at integrating proprietary information and expertise with a trusted framework for managing and mitigating the risks associated with compliance and regulatory issues.

From surveys and self-assessments to data collection and audit management, users can implement new features in the Governance Portal to help them manage enterprise and operational risks, optimize internal audit processes while monitoring compliance risks.

In theory, these things strike many as a good idea. And, most notably, they might actually be. But they also strike fear in the hearts of CIOs world-wide. Is the cloud secure? Is the cloud compliant? Is the cloud performant enough not to frustrate the entire company?

And then beyond these questions, there are the economic realities.

SaaS vendors argue that their approach saves you money. Start-up costs are certainly lower, but long term TCO may be another story. The scenario needs to be modeled for your specific organization, if you want to decide with confidence.

SpringCM -- yes, a provider of SaaS enterprise content management solutions -- thinks they've got some valuable information to share. They're running a webinar tomorrow, called The Economics of SaaS vs. On Premises.

Topics include:

• How to measure the costs and benefits of a solution over time
• The case for SaaS payback
• Why a platform (vs a point solution) can save a great deal of time and money

One additional angle that we found interesting is their approach to dealing with on-premise SharePoint when the core Enterprise CMS infrastructure lives in the cloud. You might ask about this.

You can sign-up now. The event runs tomorrow, Thurs. August 6th at 1pm Eastern (10am Pacific time).

This week in governance, risk and compliance brings us partnerships, advice and lessons learned from the recession.

Everybody is talking about how to use cloud computing to do more, spend less and bring more zenful moments to your IT department.  But how do the economics of Software as a Service (SaaS) work when compared to traditional deployed software?

Yes, there are the obvious points (no servers, wee!). But there are also more subtle bits to the equation.

If this is your cup-o-tea, join in this Thursday at 1pm Eastern time for a complimentary one-hour live webinar. The host will be Dan Carmel, a respected content management authority.

Dan will be discussing:

• Factors that go into calculating the total cost of ownership (TCO)
• Costs and benefits of SaaS vs on-premises software
• How to achieve high return on investment while reducing risk
• Who’s buying SaaS solutions, and why
• When SaaS is not the right answer

Dan will also talk about SaaS integration strategies that drive ROI by leveraging other SaaS and on-premise applications such as SharePoint and Force.com.

By attending this event, you will:

• Be better equipped to answer tough ROI questions
• Have a solid understanding of the specific economic factors that go into a SaaS content management decision

Register now for The Economics of SaaS vs. On Premises Solutions. The event runs this Thurs, August 6th at 1pm Eastern time / 10am Pacific time.

In May, Kazeon (news, site) released their fourth generation eDiscovery software. Opening it up to the likes of corporations, legal service providers and law firms, working smarter and faster got easier. Continuing in the same direction, Kazeon recently announced the arrival of the Kazeon eDiscovery Domino Manager.

The Domino in question refers to IBM's Lotus Domino, which provides enterprise-grade e-mail, collaboration capabilities and a custom application platform. With Kazeon's Domino Manager, companies can implement a streamlined and transparent workflow for litigation responsiveness. By combining Kazeon’s eDiscovery solutions with Domino, direct native connectivity can deliver comprehensive and defensible eDiscovery across the enterprise.