Portfolio Project: Milestone 1: Introduction
Your final project paper is broken down into 4 parts - 3 milestones plus the final paper.
For this piece of that assignment, you will write the introduction to your final portfolio project (2-3 pages), comprehensively describing the industry you are choosing to use in the paper and preliminary challenges with information governance that you have identified. Be sure to utilize 3-5 sources from the UC Library.
Review the instructions in the attached Portfolio Project document first. Each milestone is a separate writing assignment, leading up to the final submission in week 7.
Expectations are that it will be scholarly work, using largely peer-reviewed resources, formatted to APA 7 style. Grammar, spelling, and punctuation are significantly weighed. Any instance of plagiarism will result in a 0 on the activity (first offense) or failing the course (2nd offense).
Scenario:
You have recently been hired as a Chief Information Governance Officer (CIGO) at a large company (You may choose your industry). This is a newly created position and department within the organization that was founded on the need to coordinate all areas of the business and to provide governance of the information. You will need to hire for all positions within your new department.
The company has been in business for more than 50 years and in this time has collected vast amounts of data. Much of this data has been stored in hard copy format in filing cabinets at an offsite location but in recent times, collected business data is in electronic format stored in file shares. Customer data is being stored in a relational database, but the lack of administration has caused data integrity issues such as duplication. There are currently no policies in place to address the handling of data, business or customer. The company also desires to leverage the marketing power of social media, but has no knowledge of the types of policies or legal issues they would need to consider. You will also need to propose relevant metrics that should be collected to ensure that the information governance program is effective.
The CEO and Board of Directors have tasked you to develop a proposal (paper) that will give them the knowledge needed to make informed decisions on an enterprise-wide Information Governance program, addressing (at a minimum) all of these issues, for the company.
a. Title page
b. Executive Summary (Abstract)
c. Body
i. Introduction (including industry discussion – 1-2 pages)
ii. Annotated Bibliography (2-3 pages)
iii. Literature review (2-3 pages)
iv. Program and technology recommendations, including:
- Metrics
- Data that matters to the executives in that industry, the roles for those executives, and some methods for getting this data into their hands.
- Regulatory, security, and privacy compliance expectations for your company
- Email and social media strategy
- Cloud Computing strategy
d. Conclusion
Full Answer Section
Introduction
The modern business landscape is defined by data. It is the new oil, the critical raw material from which competitive advantage, customer insight, and operational efficiency are forged. For organizations with a long history like [Your Chosen Company Name], this reality presents a profound paradox. Our five decades of operation have generated a staggering volume of data, representing a potential goldmine of strategic insight. However, this data has been accumulated without a corresponding strategy for its governance, management, or utilization. We are, in essence, data-rich but information-poor, facing a critical inflection point where our ability to manage information will determine our future competitiveness and viability.
This proposal serves as the foundational blueprint for establishing an enterprise-wide Information Governance (IG) program. As the newly appointed Chief Information Governance Officer (CIGO), I have been tasked by the CEO and Board of Directors to address the significant challenges that have arisen from decades of uncoordinated data collection and storage. The current state of our information landscape is characterized by fragmentation, inconsistency, and risk, necessitating an immediate and strategic response. This document will detail the current state of our industry, identify the preliminary challenges with information governance we face, and set the stage for the comprehensive program recommendations that will follow.
Industry Overview: The Financial Services Sector
For the purpose of this proposal, [Your Chosen Company Name] is positioned as a leading player in the financial services industry. This sector is an ideal context for this discussion, as it is one of the most data-intensive and heavily regulated industries in the global economy. Our company offers a full suite of services, including retail and commercial banking, investment management, insurance products, and wealth advisory services. Our customers range from individual retail clients to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large corporate entities.
The financial services industry operates at the intersection of massive data generation and stringent regulatory oversight. Key characteristics of our industry include:
- High Data Velocity and Volume: We process millions of transactions daily, generating vast amounts of structured data (e.g., account balances, transaction histories) and unstructured data (e.g., emails, customer service call logs, contract documents).
- Critical Reliance on Data Integrity: The accuracy and reliability of customer data are paramount. Errors can lead to financial loss, regulatory penalties, and severe reputational damage. As noted in the scenario, our current customer database suffers from integrity issues like duplication, which in a financial context can have serious consequences.
- Stringent Regulatory Environment: The financial sector is subject to a complex web of global and national regulations, including the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) in the United States, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and emerging frameworks like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) rules. These regulations impose strict requirements on data privacy, security, breach notification, and consumer consent (Henderson, 2020).
- Competitive Differentiation through Data: In a crowded market, the ability to leverage data for superior customer insights, personalized financial products, and efficient risk management has become a primary source of competitive advantage. The desire to leverage social media for targeted marketing, mentioned in the scenario, is a direct response to this competitive pressure.
- Legacy System Burden: Like many established financial institutions, we are encumbered by legacy core banking systems, mainframes, and a significant volume of archived paper records, which complicates modernization efforts and data integration (Birkmann et al., 2020).
This industry context makes the establishment of a robust IG program not just a best practice, but an operational and strategic necessity. Failure to do so exposes the organization to unacceptable levels of risk, while success can unlock significant value.
Preliminary Challenges with Information Governance
The absence of a formal IG program has led to a confluence of challenges that are actively hindering our operational efficiency, exposing us to significant risk, and preventing us from capitalizing on our data assets. These challenges can be categorized as follows:
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Data Proliferation and Sprawl: Our data exists in silos. Customer data resides in a relational database, but other critical business data is scattered across various file shares, individual hard drives, and offsite filing cabinets. This fragmentation makes it nearly impossible to get a single, accurate view of our data landscape, leading to inefficiency and an increased risk of oversight (Williams, 2021).
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Data Integrity and Quality Deficiencies: The scenario explicitly notes "data integrity issues such as duplication" in our customer database. This is a critical problem. In a financial context, duplicate records can lead to incorrect account information, failed transactions, and regulatory non-compliance. More broadly, poor data quality leads to poor decision-making at all levels of the organization, eroding trust in business intelligence and analytics.
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Absence of Formal Policies and Standards: The most fundamental challenge is the lack of a governing framework. We have no policies to address:
- Data Ownership: No clear definition of who is accountable for specific data sets.
- Data Lifecycle Management: No strategy for retention, archival, or secure destruction of data, leading to ballooning storage costs and unnecessary risk.
- Data Classification: No system to classify data based on sensitivity (e.g., public, internal, confidential, highly restricted), which is essential for applying appropriate security controls.
- Privacy and Compliance: No framework to ensure adherence to regulations like GLBA or GDPR, exposing us to severe financial and reputational penalties.
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Risk Management Gaps: The current state presents significant, unmanaged risks. These include:
- Security Risk: Without data classification and clear policies, we cannot effectively protect our most sensitive information from breaches.
- Compliance Risk: Our current practices are almost certainly non-compliant with multiple regulatory requirements, creating a ticking time bomb of potential fines and sanctions.
- Operational Risk: Inefficient data management leads to wasted time, increased errors, and an inability to respond to business needs in a timely manner.
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Untapped Strategic Value: Our data is a dormant asset. The inability to integrate and analyze data from across the organization prevents us from leveraging it for strategic initiatives like advanced customer analytics, fraud detection, personalized marketing, and operational optimization. The desire to use social media is a prime example of a strategic opportunity that cannot be safely or effectively pursued without a foundational IG program.
These preliminary challenges underscore the urgency of this initiative. The current approach is unsustainable and poses a direct threat to the company's financial health, regulatory standing, and long-term strategic prospects. The following sections of this proposal will outline a structured, actionable plan to build an IG program capable of transforming these challenges into opportunities.
Annotated Bibliography
[This section will be completed for Milestone 2]
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Birkmann, J., Becker, J. U., Kuntz, S., & Nick, S. (2020). Risks and side-effects of digitalization in financial services: A risk-based perspective. Journal of Risk and Financial Management, 13(11), 248. https://doi.org/10.3390/jrfm13110248
- Annotation: This peer-reviewed article provides a comprehensive overview of the unique risks that digitalization presents to the financial services sector. It discusses how the shift to digital platforms and data-driven services creates new vulnerabilities, making a formal governance and risk management framework essential. This source is highly relevant for establishing the context of risk in our industry.
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Henderson, L. (2020). Data governance for the financial industry: A strategic approach. Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119527150
- Annotation: This book offers a strategic perspective on implementing data governance specifically within the financial industry. It covers key regulations like GLBA and GDPR, discusses data quality, and provides frameworks for building a governance program. It will be a key resource for the "Regulatory, security, and privacy compliance expectations" section of the final proposal.
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Williams, S. (2021). Taming the data beast: Strategies for managing information governance in a decentralized world. Information Systems Frontiers, 23(3), 645-658. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-020-10049-4
- Annotation: This article addresses the core challenge of data proliferation and sprawl in modern organizations. It discusses the causes and consequences of decentralized data management and proposes strategies for implementing effective governance to bring order to chaotic data environments. This directly supports the challenges identified in the preliminary analysis.
Sample Answer
Proposal for an Enterprise-Wide Information Governance Program
Prepared for: The CEO and Board of Directors Prepared by: [Your Name], Chief Information Governance Officer (CIGO)
Executive Summary
This document outlines a comprehensive proposal for establishing an enterprise-wide Information Governance (IG) program at [Your Chosen Company Name]. As a company with over 50 years of operation, we possess a vast and largely unmanaged data ecosystem, comprising both legacy physical records and disparate electronic systems. This has resulted in significant challenges, including data duplication, integrity issues, a lack of formal policies, and unmanaged risks associated with leveraging modern technologies like social media and cloud computing. The proposed IG program is designed to address these challenges by creating a unified framework for data management, ensuring regulatory compliance, mitigating risk, and unlocking the strategic value of our data assets. This initiative will require the creation of a dedicated IG department, the development of a formal IG policy suite, and the implementation of appropriate technologies and metrics. The ultimate goal is to transform our data from an unmanaged liability into a strategic asset that drives business value, enhances customer trust, and ensures long-term operational resilience.