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Applying Information Policy

By: Peter Williams
Format: Spotlight
Published: July 2007

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Every large enterprise carries a set of general policies which determine the way the business will be run and the direction to take. Within this, there are policies concerned with how to deal with the information generated and received. In fact, it is hard to identify a policy that is not dependent in some way on company-held information.

The ideal situation—the goal—is to have a set of high-level enterprise-wide information policies from which more granular policies are developed; for instance, for implementation within specific lines of business (LOBs) or divisions, in turn filtering down to departments as needed. It should also go without saying that industry best practice should be followed at all stages from policy design onwards.

However, information policies all need to be applied where the information is stored and managed—on the company’s computer systems. This typically includes central corporate systems, often located within a data centre, and local departmental systems serving the LOBs.