Yes, as the person who holds the CIO job, there are plenty of things you could be working on. But, have you considered what you ought to be doing? The answer is yes, and considering the importance of information technology; it could be what you or your IT team aren’t doing that will result in causing your business and you the most problems. In the current world is ours today, there is a chance that at any moment, your business could be threatened with being sued. In the event of a lawsuit, there might be a need for electronic records. Are you prepared to retrieve them?
What is the risk that CIOs are Expedited To from Email?
It’s like not too long ago, when you received a request from your company for documents, for example, emails, you were able to put it off for an extended period of time because you claimed you were having difficulty finding the information they requested. What’s more, in this case, the U.S. Federal e-Discovery laws have been amended, and you’re no more allowed to argue that searching for the requested documents is a burden that is unreasonable for the company.
In the new regulations, as the person who holds the CIO position of the company, CIO position, you’re expected to be able to produce the required documents quickly. If you aren’t able to do this, your company could be facing a considerable cost. You could also lose the instance that the request was part of. The challenge that most CIOs have to face is that without a plan, they might not be able to fulfill requests for information.
What we must realize is that finding the documents requested can be a challenge to accomplish. If you must locate an email that has been requested explicitly on a storage tape, this will be both a costly and time-consuming job that IT departments must tackle. Costs could go as high as $500 per tape that needs to be scanned.
What Should a CIO be doing to get ready to create records?
What all these changes mean to the business is that it is imperative to start taking action now to be prepared for the possibility of locating required records. What this will involve is establishing a project inside the IT department to implement an array of e-discovery tools. They will be the tools you employ to search your tapes and email archives to find documents requested by the.
Your responsibilities as CIO aren’t finished there. You will also need to take the initiative and aid your company in creating guidelines that outline the life cycle of email within your organization. This includes the types of emails that should be archived as well as how they should be classified, and which conditions they may be destroyed. To create these guidelines, you’re likely to be required to create the members of a cross-functional team.
In the end, having a policy isn’t enough. Additionally, you will need to review the individuals who are required to follow the rules. The goal of the audits is to see if the procedures are being followed correctly. What you must do is persuade everyone to take appropriate actions with regard to how emails are addressed.
What does all Of This Mean For You?
We live in a time where, at even the smallest of mistakes, someone can decide to sue your business. However, this doesn’t mean they will be successful, but as the CIO of your company, CIO you’ll be held accountable to provide all records requested and provide them quickly.
Recent changes to the law have eliminated reasons that companies were able to claim that searching for records was an excessive burden. It is now the CIO’s job to ensure that requested records are able to quickly and efficiently be made. What that means for your company is you have to adopt technology to locate documents quickly. In addition, you must cooperate with your company to create and implement a legally-binding retention policy for documents.
The fact is, being requested to create records is not the kind of thing anyone CIO would like to see occurs. But, at some point, it’s likely to occur to you. This means that you must take action now to be prepared for the eventuality. Be prepared, and in the event of an emergency, you’ll be prepared, CIO.