Contoural Services - Data Policy

Contoural analysts and consultants work with organizations to develop up-to-date retention and archiving policies for electronic records such as email, electronic documents and databases.

Service Objective
Establish compliant, legally-supportable record retention policies that meet business needs – and are simple and cost-effective to deploy and maintain.

Example Deliverables

Compliance and Document Retention Policy Seminar
Current Practices Report Card
Global Retention Policy
Data Privacy and Protection Policy
E-mail Archiving Policy
Enterprise Application Data Archiving Policy
Unstructured File Data Archiving Policy
Policy Deployment Plan
Communication and End-User Education Plan

Benefits of the Contoural Project Approach

Establishes conceptual framework and cross-functional common ground regarding legal, regulatory and operational needs for data retention, protection, privacy and accessibility
Engages application owners and representative end-users in policy and requirements definition
Creates or updates retention and protection policies for the major categories of electronic documents and data
Documents IT-facing and end-user policies for data retention, storage security and data accessibility
Simplifies policy deployment by facilitating technology leverage and policy automation
Reduces end-user effort and IT intervention
Essential first step to ensure compliance, reduce risks, optimize service levels and lower costs

Business Drivers: Retention Policy Requirements, Benefits and Costs
Compliance and business requirements are driving explosive growth in digital documents, databases and message stores. Companies consider technology solutions for secure and affordable data storage and management, but often find that policy conflicts or uncertainties prevent forward movement. Meanwhile, the risks and costs are growing along with the data stores.

Questions to consider:

Do you have a record retention policy? Or many of them?
Do your policies address data privacy and protection?
Do your policies include all record formats, not just paper?
Do they reflect recent changes in laws, regulations, technologies, standards and best practices?
Are the policies consistent, realistic and simple to deploy and manage?
Is management unsure of electronic record retention requirements?
Do conflicting views prevent action?

Approach: Defining the Policy Requirements
Contoural offers Data Policy consulting services to help you ensure compliance, meet legal requirements and reduce costs. Senior Contoural consultants work with the legal, compliance, HR business and IT groups to clarify the client’s business requirements and current practices, and compare them to industry best practices. Contoural then develops and proposes a record management policy that simplifies the management of e-mail, databases, electronic document files, and (if needed) paper documents. The proposed policies are designed so that the client can leverage available technologies to achieve simplicity, ease of deployment and ongoing cost reduction.

These services are structured as discrete projects that offer immediate value. The typical Phase 1 project is an educational seminar or workshop that establishes a conceptual framework for collaboration. Phase 2 includes requirements definition, policy creation and action plans.

Data Sheet
The Compliance and Retention Policy Services data sheet provides a more detailed description of the typical project phases and deliverables.

Contoural data policy analysts have a deep understanding of application data requirements and storage solutions, connecting the business requirements that drive data/storage policy with the appropriate archiving architecture and technology selection decisions. Analysts have at least 10 years of professional experience in data storage, data management and archiving, working in or with large enterprise IT organizations. They understand applications such as email, databases and file services, and the implications and requirements for data storage, retention and retrieval.

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