Startups have a lot on their plate trying to build up hype, secure funding, and make a name for themselves. While there are plenty of strategies and approaches that you can take, one thing remains constant. You need data. More importantly, you need good quality data. You’re new, so you don’t have access to the same legacy and historical data that goes back years to fall back on. You can’t offer personalization to customers that’s born from years of monitoring.
What you can do, however, is launch your business with an airtight data governance framework and the right tools to keep every byte of your data secure, classified, and organized.
With around one-third of a company’s data, on average, being outdated or redundant (and a further 52% being dark data or data with unknown value), it’s crucial that you start your startup’s data management approach on the right foot. Data is nothing without order, so use this guide to bring order to your startup and build a stronger brand because of it.
Create a Robust Data Governance Framework
First things first, you need rules that everyone has to follow when it comes to creating, saving, or changing data. This means you need an enterprise data governance framework that sets:
- Rules on file naming
- Rules on folder naming
- Rules on tags and metadata
- Rules on encryption
- And so on
These rules need to be implemented uniformly by everyone – human workers and by your systems. You can use data governance tools to help ensure your data is properly marked up and stored, yes, but having everyone on board from the start is going to make everyone’s job that much easier.
Create User Roles and Restrictions
Every role needs to be clearly defined so that those users only have access to the information they need. Roles, by the way, cover both the roles that your employees have as well as the tools that you use. Don’t forget that tools, AI systems, SaaS systems, and more also need access to your data, and therefore need to be limited to only what it needs to better secure your system. Solutions like IAM, especially when you understand the common risks and how to avoid them, can be just the ticket.
Use Data Security Posture Management
In existing systems, DSPM can help find shadow data, work to classify data based on how sensitive it is, and even help you identify unneeded user access. As a startup, you can then use DSPM to catch any issues from human error or machine hallucination. Think of it like your quality assurance system that works to keep a unified view on your data, so all sensitive files are restricted and encrypted.
The best part is that DSPM tools also make it far easier to stay compliant with policies like GDPR and the like, saving you time and allowing you to scale up faster. In short, it can help you handle many of the data security in cloud computing essentials, automatically.
Regularly Review Your Approach
As a startup, you need to take advantage of the best and latest tools out there. You’ll also be going through a learning curve as you try out solutions and find what works for you and what doesn’t. The reason you need to review your approach is twofold. One, you need to keep checking that you’re using the best tools for your business. Two, you need to check that you’ve properly offloaded old tools or systems to prevent any backdoor access in the future.
