Information governance takes center stage in 2013: spotlight shines on IG pros: the need for organizations to control and extract value out of exponentially increasing electronic data will drive five data management trends and thrust information governance professionals into the spotlight in 2013.

• Author: Shute, William

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Throughout the last several years, organizations' storage concerns have been shifting from securing office space to managing cyber space, as they have been seeking solutions for managing, accessing, and leveraging the value of their electronic records. Organizations are being inundated with growing amounts and expanding varieties of electronic content, ranging from audio, video, and social media to more traditional documents and e-mails.

In fact, research firm IDC predicted in its "2011 Digital Universe Study: Extracting Value from Chaos" that businesses would create and replicate more than 1.8 trillion gigabytes of electronic information in 2011 alone, increasing by a factor of nine in just five years.

As the volume of electronic data is poised to expand beyond the gigabyte domain to terabytes, petabytes, and exabytes, the records management function continues to evolve, and new trends continue to emerge.

In addition to storing exploding volumes of data, organizations in 2013 will continue to look for ways to extract value out of their proprietary information in a structured, real-time, and cost-effective manner. Meanwhile, providing internal and external constituents access to information via a variety of mobile and personal devices, combined with demands for information privacy, security, and protection of trade secrets, will continue to challenge professionals charged with governing their organizations' electronic content.

These challenges will drive the five leading data management trends likely to emerge in 2013, catapulting the records management responsibility into the limelight for businesses looking to understand, protect, and leverage their proprietary data.

1 Records Management Move to Forefront

Proprietary information represents the heart of any organization. Protecting and managing exclusive data via information governance best practices and technologies will gain greater prominence in 2013, thrusting the corporate records manager into the spotlight.

As businesses consider new initiatives for enterprise information management and governance, including strategies to reduce costs and eliminate legacy systems and data, records managers will have the opportunity to shape policy, alongside their colleagues in the IT and legal departments.

Armed with critical insight needed to establish new programs that help determine the value of the organization's information, records managers will be at the center of all discussions surrounding two major initiatives:

* Extracting value out of "big data," or information from a wide range of sources, including traditional databases, unstructured data, and real-time feeds from logs and social media

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