Creating a Managed Data Environment
A Managed Data Environment, or MDE for short, is the combination of technology solutions, data strategy, data culture, and information security. All businesses have a data environment, albeit managed or unmanaged, and the risks associated with an unmanaged MDE can be significant silent disruptors.
Before you start to look at an MDE and the transformation required, why should you have one?
If you lost control of business data, what would be the true cost? The true cost could be a combination of:
downtime for users, customers and suppliers
reputation
financial
business culture
commercial
all of these can impact your day-to-day business practices, but also your growth and development over time. Without control over your data, you risk damaging your potential.
How to begin
Before you start to determine the technology required to support your MDE, you first need to understand your data landscape and the associated data pathways. Put simply, understand what data you have and how is it being used.
What data do you have and where is it located?
Your IT team, whether that be internal or external, are the best people to direct this question towards. However, we would always recommend using an open-ended question approach to ensure you capture all possible data locations that may be outside the visibility of IT. Questions like, "How do you complete this process?" or "Where do you save this type of work?".
Who is using the data and how?
Depending on your position in the business, one method you can use to start this process is to look at what data you use on daily basis. You will come up with a list that includes tools like email, file shares (either mapped drives or cloud hosted), maybe a post-delivery, and in some unfortunate circumstances, the occasional fax message! Now you have a starting point, you can share this with the wider business asking for their input and confirmation of the services being used. Prepare yourself to be amazed (and in some cases, lost for words) by the results!
Who takes ownership of the data?
When we talk about data ownership, we are referring to who is ultimately responsible for the management, security and use of the data. An example here could be your HR system would typically be under the ownership of the HR Manager or Chief Operating Officer.
What's next?
Now you have an understanding of the data landscape and pathways, you need to understand how the data "should" be being used. This comes down to regulatory requirements such as the EU GDPR and UK Data Protection Act 2018 alongside your internal controls which may be dictated by certification to international standards such as ISO 27001 or 27018. From these controls, you can start to establish your data strategy to capture;
data locations and use case
any governance requirements
the security controls in place to protect the data
how you will audit your data.
You now know the data you have, how it is being used, and how you should be using it and now comes the "what could happen" more commonly referred to as the risk assessment. What are the risks to your data? Below are some example questions that you can use to start building your risk assessment.
Are you sharing confidential information as email attachments?
Do you have folders with open access across the business?
When was the last time you had to change your password?
How are people working from home? Are they saving information to their desktops or USB drives?
Once you have identified your risks, you should find ways of reducing the impact or likelihood of the risk occurring which is commonly referred to as treating the risk. Do not think you must have a technical answer for each of these, your data culture is just as important as technical systems and can be just as capable of treating some risks.
Maintaining your MDE
Creating a data culture that supports best practices and your data strategy significantly reduces the amount of maintenance required. We recommend reviewing the MDE every quarter at a minimum to cater for changes in the business and customer requirements. Keep an eye out for our upcoming article on data cultures!
In the same way you clean your offices regularly and update the decor from time to time, you must treat your data environment the same way. Without maintenance, it becomes messy and the cracks will start to show.