Bridging the Gap between Business and IT: An Information Governance Perspective in the Banking Industry - Data Governance: Creating Value from Information Assets - page 222

Defining Information Governance (IG)
Information governance (IG) is an emerging concept in the field of gov-
ernance (Van Grembergen and Haes, 2009) and it is part of the response
to the inadequacy of IT governance with respect to the increasing impor-
tance of information in modern organizations (Kooper, Maes, and
Lindgreen, 2009). The concept of information governance was introduced
by Donaldson and Walker (2004) as a framework to support the work at
the National Health Society on security and confidentiality arrangements
to be applied at multiple levels in electronic information services. Some
definitions of information governance are presented below.
Soares (2011) states that “information governance is the formulation of
policy to optimize, secure, and leverage information as an enterprise asset
by aligning the objectives of multiple functions.”
Kooper, Maes, and Lindgreen (2011) state that information gover-
nance “involves establishing an environment of opportunities, rules, and
decision-making rights for the valuation, creation, collection, analysis,
distribution, storage, use, and control of information.”
For Gartner, “ Information governance is the specification of decision
rights and an accountability framework to encourage desirable behavior
in the valuation, creation, storage, use, archival, and deletion of informa-
tion. It includes the processes, roles, standards, and metrics that ensure
the effective and efficient use of information in enabling an organization
to achieve its goals.”
Organizations need IG to be able to respond to those basic, but some-
times awkward, questions: What information do we have? For what do we
need this information? Who is responsible for this information? Who can
use this information? or For how long do we have to keep this information?
If a bank is able to respond to these questions for all its information, it is
probably working over some IG factors, or in other words, it is already on
the way of IG. If not, it is time to start an IG program as soon as possible.
For example, a very common situation in banks is when no one wants
the responsibility for deleting outdated IT content. Who pulls the trigger?
Knowing its information catalog is basic for every organization, and there
is no doubt that information belongs in the business areas.
Dealing with structured data is usual, but unstructured content like email,
images, social media data, and others is critical in many business areas and
it should be mandatory to implement an IG program. Managers of different