Microsoft 365 is the platform to collaborate, share documents and digitize processes. But if governance is set up incorrectly, risks quickly arise that jeopardize your productivity, compliance and security. Think proliferation of Teams, loss of critical documents or even fines due to non-compliance with laws and regulations.
Our Governance & Compliance Scan gives you insight into these risks and concrete tools to deal with them. In this blog you will discover why that is so important, which 6 risks your organization faces with an incorrectly designed governance and why our Governance Governance & Compliance Scan is the step understand this and to get started.
Many organizations do not have a clear policy on document retention periods. As a result, crucial contracts or HR files disappear too early, or emails containing personal data remain stored for years. This leads not only to inefficiency, but also to violations of the AVG, Archive Act or NIS2. The result? Fines, legal risk ‘s or even reputational damage.
Solution: Set retention periods by document type and automate it through Microsoft Purview. This way you can demonstrate compliance with laws and regulations and prevent documents from disappearing too soon or remaining indefinitely bestand.
Without a grip on data quality stacking Redundante, Obsolete and Trivial data accumulate quickly. Think of drives full of old versions or Teams with dozens of variants of document_definitive_v4.docx. This makes it difficult to find the right information, increases storage costs and increases the likelihood that employees are working with outdated documents and dates.
Solution: use classification and lifecycle management to automatically clean up old and duplicate files. This provides overview, better findability and prevents employees from working with incorrect information.
With one click, anyone can create a Team or site. Without agreements, this leads almost always to a jumble vof environments: double Teams for the same project, old project groups still open and outside guests keeping access. IT LOST OVERVIEW, communication reaches employees less well and users get lost among all the Teams.
Solution: work with provisioning and lifecycle-rules. New Teams and sites are then created according to fixed templates and old environments are automatically archived. This keeps the environment manageable and clear.
When employees have to choose labels or retention periods themselves, mistakes occur. Often, they conveniently choose the longest term or do not label at all. The result: sensitive documents are kept indefinitely or important files disappear too soon. Think of quotations that are never deleted or HR documents that inadvertently disappear.
Solution: Automate retention policies instead of letting employees themselves let you choose. This ensures data is kept or deleted consistently and makes it easier to comply with internal guidelines and external audits.
Copilot may show information that is not intended for everyone. Suppose an employee asks for a report and is given access to sensitive financial data ; That creates immediate risks. In addition, bad data in = bad output. If data is not classified or cleansed, it gives Copilot erroneous or misleading answers.
Solution: Secure access rights and clean up outdated data. This will prevent Copilot presents sensitive or inaccurate information and get the benefits from AI without running risks.
Many organizations lack visibility into who has access to what information. External vendors often maintain access to old projects, or financial folders are visible to entire departments. This increases the risk of data breaches and misuse of sensitive data. Often, this is not a malice, but simply a result of lack of oversight.
Solution: Check access rights regularly and set policies in for guest use. This reduces the risk of unauthorized access to sensitive information.
As you can see, improperly designed governance in Microsoft 365 can pose quite a few risks, which can cost your organization dearly: from compliance issues to sprawl and data loss. Our Governance & Compliance Scan uncovers these risks and gives you concrete tools to deal with them immediately.
Are you curious about the status of your governance and compliance, and want practical advice on getting it right? Schedule the scan and we will help you!
