Tech Alert: How to Manage the ‘Inventory’ of Business Data

Retailers understand how inventory control systems reduce costly errors, improve customer service, deliver competitive advantages and increase the value of their business. Companies should understand that by controlling the ‘inventory’ of their business data they will significantly multiply these benefits, says Digitiliti, Inc. (OTCBB:DIGI), the leader in Intelligent Information Management and Compliance solutions for small to midsized enterprises.

“Looking at information as inventory to be controlled is a shift in perspective that will lead toward further increases in effective business process management, reduced risk, meeting compliance mandates and improved overall efficiency,” said Ken Peters, Digitiliti’s executive vice president. “Information management’s goal, like an inventory control system, is to capture, manage, preserve, store, and deliver the right information to the right people at the right time. Companies don’t realize that over 80% of their data is unstructured and uncontrolled. If companies let their inventory system operate with the same efficiency and accuracy, they would be out of business pretty fast.”

As with any inventory control system, an information control system needs the following capabilities:

Creation

Information must be captured at the point of origin – usually end user PCs. Files are entered into inventory upon save/close, and emails on send and receive. The capture process includes all file metadata such as creator, date, time and location.

Access

Securing the information inventory relies on setting policies covering who has access to files, emails and attachments.

Search

Keeping records of information inventory isn’t sufficient – employees have to be able to physically find those items. Search capabilities should include content search as well as fields like file name, file type and date range.

Revision Control

Depending on the level of inventory control needed, whenever a file is revised, it can be considered a new item. End users can roll back to previous versions in case of errors or to track versions.

Use

Inventory items that aren’t in demand should not take up valuable floor space. Similarly, infrequently requested information should be moved to archives, while active information stays at hand for quick access.

Removal

Taking information out of inventory should be controlled with retention and deletion policies, which are applicable at a global, group user or file level.

Digitiliti’s DigiLIBE™ is a simple to use system designed to protect the confidentiality, integrity, availability of data from its point of origin to final disposition. All user data is captured at the point of origin and becomes a unique DigiLIBE Information Object. The Information Object contains a uniform set of metadata and preserves the integrity of the data-essential elements for compliance and timely business decisions. The Information Object is indexed, cataloged, encrypted and stored in a Virtual Corporate Library further protecting the confidentiality, integrity, availability of your data. DigiLIBE also provides essential data and information management capabilities such as e-discovery, email and auto-desktop archiving, global deduplication, content indexing, retention management, local storage, compression, encryption and long-term archiving. DigiLIBE has three simple components – Workstation Clients, Information Director, and the cloud based Archive Information Store. DigiLIBE reduces the number of disparate IT products needed, and the complexity and costs involved with managing your information growth. A flash presentation is available at: http://digitiliti.com/index.php/solutions/digilibe.html.

About Digitiliti, Inc.:

Digitiliti, based in St. Paul, Minnesota, is a pioneer and technology leader in the information management business. Digitiliti's focus is on providing SMB companies with enterprise class features and services that are easy to use. Digitiliti services include DigiBAK, a comprehensive off-site data protection solution, and DigiLIBE, a complete information management solution to mine the knowledge in unstructured content.

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