Using Data Mapping and Assessment to Minimize eDiscovery Cost and Risk

Last week Dennis Kiker contributed an interesting article to Law Technology News entitled How To Manage ESI To Rein In Runaway Costs. At the heart of the problem is that we’re a country of corporate data hoarders. We keep data past its expiration; we don’t have a good system in place for categorizing and managing it, and are overwhelmed when a legal request necessitates identifying and collecting data relevant to a case. Dennis states:

Despite the high cost of its painstaking preservation and storage, much of this data will never be relevant to any legal case. Indeed, according to a 2009 survey by Framingham, Mass.-based IDC, 60 to 80 percent of the information retained by corporations in America has no value from a business or legal perspective.

Legal departments have historically focused on the ‘right side’ of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) – the analysis and review stages. However, if the quality of collected data in the review platform is unnecessary, insufficient, spoiled, or irrelevant; this significantly increases an organization’s legal cost and risk.

Kiker goes on to say… the best approach for many companies is to get serious about cleaning up their information environments. By “taking out the trash” in a major way, companies stand to make big cuts in their annual data-storage bills, which can also run into the six figures. This also enables them to more quickly and more accurately identify potentially relevant information for the attorneys to sift through during a review process, potentially lowering their legal bills.

Legal teams are increasingly realizing the business value and ROI from strengthening their company’s ‘left-side’ EDRM capabilities and understand that sound information governance practices result in highly targeted and effective eDiscovery.

The article points out that shrinking the overall stack of data is a good start to minimizing eDiscovery costs, but companies also need to find all the relevant information contained in their data. He says:

Data mapping offers a way to solve this problem. The basic idea is to create a master index that spells out exactly where content is stored. Surprisingly, many companies have never taken this critical information management step.

In fact, Barry Murphy was reflecting on the Carmel Valley eDiscovery Conference and commented in his blog: Get specific. Know where data lives and do the data maps.  It’s impossible to preserve data if you don’t know where it is.

At StoredIQ we couldn’t agree more. To prove it, during the month of August, StoredIQ is extending a promotional offer for our data assessment and mapping service. The first 10 qualified companies will pay only $10,000, a savings of $5,000 off list price.

StoredIQ Data Assessment Services provide unprecedented visibility into the unstructured data across the enterprise. This invaluable service quickly gives organizations critical understanding of their business content to make more informed decisions about the management, retention, and disposition of their data.

To learn more about this offer and to take the first step toward managing your escalating ESI-related costs and risk – contact us today!

Upcoming New FINRA Regulations… Are You Ready?

Amendments to broker-dealer books and records requirements under FINRA 4511 and 4512, take effect December 5, 2011. The new rules require member firms to make and preserve certain books and records to show their compliance with securities laws, rules and regulations. These requirements will undoubtedly impact ongoing records management and retention processes for broker-dealers, as well as impact future FINRA audits and legal discovery requests.

Planning for FINRA Compliance
With the effective date only a few months away, broker-dealers will need to be prepared to show updated policies and procedures with supporting systems to be ready for their 2012 FINRA audit. Compliance officers should ask:

• Do we have the systems capabilities in place to identify, track and preserve the required records?
• Is now a good time to perform a holistic data assessment review of the information and records your firm currently has stored across all data repositories, content management systems and archives?
• Are you able to implement defensible data deletion policies as prescribed by the new FINRA requirements?
  Can your current data storage and archiving capabilities withstand the volumes for day-to-day reporting and historical archiving? If not, how can you strategically clean up your data storage?
• Will new technologies be needed to assist, and what does the implementation timetable look like to be in compliance by December?

Meeting FINRA Requirements with StoredIQ
StoredIQ’s Information Governance solution provides broker-dealers with a comprehensive, secure and efficient approach to meeting their FINRA information governance needs. With StoredIQ, companies can manage risk and contain costs by leveraging automated compliance and governance policies.  The result is an efficient and cost-effective answer for today’s highly regulated business world.

By implementing StoredIQ now and planning accordingly, broker-dealers can be in compliance by the December 5th FINRA implementation date and ready for a 2012 FINRA audit examination.

To learn more, download the StoredIQ FINRA Solution Sheet or contact us for more information.

StoredIQ Welcomes Tom Bishop as Chief Technology Officer

Today StoredIQ announced that Tom Bishop has joined our executive management team as chief technology officer. A recognized and award-winning CTO, Tom brings over 30 years of experience in systems architecture, distributed computing and data management and will be responsible for StoredIQ’s product vision and direction. He is well known as a technology innovator and led the development of numerous industry standards. In 2004 Tom was recognized as “Chief Technology Officer of the Year” by InfoWorld magazine.

The growing size and complexity of the digital universe has created enormous challenges for corporations. However this creates a unique opportunity for StoredIQ. We can give companies the deep visibility and insight they need to better understand their data, and make better business decisions, while reducing costs and legal risks. With his experience and track record at developing enterprise platforms, Tom is the ideal person to lead the next generation of StoredIQ’s information management solutions.

Tom was the former chief technology officer of IBM Tivoli, where he created and led Tivoli’s distributed systems management technology and products. After Tivoli, Tom served as CTO of VIEO, Inc., where he was named “Chief Technology Officer of the Year” by InfoWorld magazine. As vice president and chief technology officer at BMC Software, Tom was responsible for product vision and direction, including advancing Atrium, the company’s innovative open-architected foundation for Business Service Management solutions. Most recently Tom served as CTO of IronStratus (formerly Conformity) and prior to Conformity he was vice president of engineering for Storspeed.

As Nick Negroponte predicted, the value of enterprise computing is becoming much less about atoms – managing the systems that do work – and much more about bits – managing the applications and information — the true future of the business in the 21st century. StoredIQ is delivering the solutions that enable organizations to make this critical and fundamental transition. I am thrilled to be a part of StoredIQ’s executive leadership team, and looks forward to helping drive the innovation and technology direction for the full range of StoredIQ’s information management solutions.

– Tom Bishop, CTO, StoredIQ

To learn more about StoredIQ, visit our website or email us at info@storediq.com.