Managing Data in the Information Hyperinflation Era

Information hyperinflation is the massive surge in newly generated and shared information, or data, and it’s crippling the ability of companies to stay compliant with industry regulations.

As enterprise data management becomes increasingly complex, information managers are under increasing pressure to facilitate efficient categorisation and retrieval of data. Traditional data management strategies and governance approaches simply aren’t enough to keep up with the rapid expansion of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data. 

Now regulators are asking enterprises for proof that they can effectively manage the totality of their data in a scalable, accurate, and effective manner. It’s a monumental task, considering the growth of highly collaborative, unstructured information assets an enterprise creates across multiple platforms.  

In fact, the challenge is so great, 32% of organisations “lack or must recreate their information management policy” to ensure effective management of their overwhelming amount of data. This is according to a research report conducted by IBRS, commissioned by EncompaaS,  to better understand the perspectives of senior IT specialists involved in managing Australian organisations’ information assets.  

Our CEO, Jesse Todd, weighs in:

“It’s no longer acceptable to simply remediate a breach. Regulators now have an expectation that organisations are proactively reducing their compliance and privacy risks, and there are significant fines to enforce this behaviour. 

“There is also the expectation from shareholders and customers to be responsible corporate citizens. You will be judged by how well you can execute your information management policies across your organisation, and prove to regulators and the community that you can effectively de-risk and manage your data at scale.” 

Jesse Todd, CEO EncompaaS

Thankfully, there is a growing belief that AI (Artificial Intelligence) offers some interesting solutions for effectively managing the impact of information hyperinflation. 

The largest driver of information hyperinflation is remote and hybrid work

The IBRS study revealed that enterprises turned to a greater number of collaboration platforms with the rise of hybrid and remote work. This was a fundamental change in their operations, spreading their information to a greater number of platforms– media, community sites, online learning, and file-sharing services such as SharePoint, Teams and OneDrive.  

It is not just that there is more data. The type of data has shifted as well. While corporate information was once primarily text-based, it now encompasses various forms of media, such as images, audio, and video, and other unstructured data formats, making unstructured data processing an urgent priority.  

Additionally, the rapid rise of generative AI has drastically expedited the volume and speed of content production. This acceleration is further compounding the growth of unstructured data management challenges at an unprecedented rate. 

“Senior executives – not just those directly involved in information management solutions and policies – within organisations now realise that the multiple information repositories and collaboration platforms increase risks and potentially disrupt compliance with governance and regulatory policies,” the IBRS report states. 

The study underscores the scale of the challenge: 51% of survey respondents state that effectively managing and governing such a landscape is their greatest information management challenge today. 

How are organisations grappling with information hyperinflation?

Many organisations are trying to cope with the overflow of information within their existing EDRM solutions, collaboration tools, and Microsoft Office environments. 

The study highlights that organisations are prioritising investments in:

• Expanded use of Microsoft Office 365, SharePoint, and Teams
• Upgrading EDRM solutions to handle information across multiple locations 

Despite these investments, the report states that information management professionals are less confident in their organisation’s ability to manage information hyperinflation, with only 28% believing they’re doing so well, according to the report.  

“The challenges that organisations face are overwhelming and traditional methods are failing. The amount of data relating to privacy is now in the range of petabytes. To keep up with the pace and complexity of this challenge, we now need to understand that data not only with great accuracy but also at great scale. The only way to do that is with technology.”

Jesse Todd, CEO EncompaaS

The role of AI in data management

The IBRS report reveals a growing belief that AI data management will be crucial to addressing information hyperinflation.

• 53% of organisations are considering factoring content cognition (a subset of Intelligent Document Processing) into their data management strategy
• 18% say it was very likely they will adopt AI-powered solutions for managing business information
•  22% of organisations are already actively leveraging AI-infused enterprise data management tools

This demonstrates a growing belief among enterprises that AI in data management is the key to regaining control over unstructured data management challenges, enabling structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data to be governed effectively and at scale.  

For more information on how AI will drive the next wave of information management innovation, download the full IBRS Report below or head to our dedicated IBRS Report Hub.