Today’s technology has created information overload for companies worldwide. We are inundated with digital data every day. In a recent study, research firm IDC reports electronic information created and replicated within the workplace is growing at a faster pace than any other segment of the digital universe. According to the IDC, about 25 percent of the data generated last year, both original and copied, came from the business world. By 2010, IDC predicts that portion will increase to 30 percent.

As this influx of data continues to rise, so does the number of lawsuits filed in Michigan each year. Currently, the state averages a total of 121,000 new lawsuits annually. What do these two issues have in common? Plenty, when you consider how recent amendments to the Federal Rules for Civil Procedure (FRCP) change the way businesses must store and manage electronic data.

When litigation ensues, all electronic data is discoverable and can pose two significant problems for businesses: discoverable data can provide a goldmine of information to the opposing side and complying with court ordered disclosure of information can be time consuming and expensive absent proper retention and storage systems.

Under the new rules, discoverable data required in litigation must be identified within 99 days. According to a recent Pike & Fischer report, 93 percent of companies in the U.S. are not prepared to meet this demand. Non-compliance can be costly – businesses may face sanctions, summary judgments or dismissals.

Mitigating the risk
Now more than ever, companies are expected to have an accurate and complete inventory of their electronically stored information (ESI). They must be prepared to readily access, review and produce all relevant information in the wake of a lawsuit. Therefore, developing an effective policy on the availability of ESI and/or its destruction is vital to managing the risks associated with these changes.

To create this policy, companies must first ask some key questions, including:

• What information is retained and for how long?
• How is the retained data stored and organized?
• How long would it take to locate certain ESI?
• When should information be destroyed?
• How would or should you destroy data?

Developing the policy involves classifying information and, based on these classifications, documenting retention, organization, destruction and preservation policies. Next steps include staff notification and training and implementing technology strategies for automation and processes for ongoing data classification and management. Automated data management is the final step and vital to this process. At this point, organizations must ensure all relevant electronic information is preserved and more importantly, easily accessed.

Where is my data?
Can you answer this simple question: where is my data? Unfortunately, may companies can not and have faced severe penalties because they were unable to produce certain documents in this new era of electronic discovery.

Businesses store massive amounts of digital data, including email, voicemail, instant message logs and internal documents on computer networks and individual hard drives. Implementing an Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) strategy brings order to this ever-expanding mass of information. ILM is a combination of policies, procedures, tools and practices that help organizations align the cost of a business technology infrastructure and the value of the data that infrastructure is managing.

The value of information is greatest at the time it’s created. Over time, its relevance diminishes but the maintenance costs continue to grow. Typically, most data loses its value after six months and much of the information we store expires its worth after 12 months. Yet, businesses expend significant corporate resources to store this data year after year. Using an automated process to manage and store information can lead to reduced risks and costs associated with electronic discovery. Some additional key benefits include the ability to:

• Manage data throughout its entire lifecycle
• Produce, retrieve and review all discoverable data on demand
• Provide audit-ready reporting
• Reduce risk of inadvertently producing privileged information

Leverage technology, lower cost
Executing an ILM strategy is an ongoing process that initially involves determining your most critical applications and the data associated with them. The next step includes developing and documenting policies for backup and recovery, security and protection, and archive and compliance. At the point of implementation, companies can lower the cost by leveraging technology to automate processes.

ILM has become a best practice in the business world. In addition to its applications for legal discovery, it encompasses many of today’s most pertinent business and technology issues such as corporate and regulatory compliance, storage efficiency, and disaster recovery. Regardless of the situation, having an ILM strategy in place allows companies to efficiently transport, store, secure, replicate and access crucial information – all critical to sound business management in today’s Information Age.

Brian Young is a senior account manager with Trivalent Group, a leading technology firm based in Grandville, Mich.