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Spark has been engaged by local insurer Fidelity Life to help implement a data governance strategy and provide greater visibility and control over sensitive data and improved resilience and competitiveness.
“Most organisations sit on hundreds of millions of files across hybrid environments,” said Tahira Begum, security lead of governance, risk and compliance at Fidelity Life.
Figuring out the location of data was increasingly difficult.
“We recognised the need for a robust data protection and governance strategy to mitigate risks, ensure compliance with industry regulation, and protect customer information,” Begum said.
The collaboration includes tapping into Spark’s security consulting service and Microsoft Purview tools.
Spark conducted data security workshops in three Fidelity’s business units to identify data security risks, set security controls and to establish compliance priorities to strengthen data management practices.
Using the Microsoft tools, the data security check was a mostly automated but crucial to identify data sets such as emails, collaborative content and document storage, and for spotting potential security risks.
The workshops also zeroed in on users’ day-to-day habits, building a detailed picture of where people store certain types of data and how data was managed.
Classifying – or labelling – data and documents according to specific attributes was fundamental to Fidelity Life’s data protection strategy and to ensure data was managed according to its classification.
“Our data protection strategy is the driving force,” Begum said. “Then you’ve got your tools to roll it out.
“First, you’ve got to recognise data as a target and answer the questions: where is my data, which data is sensitive, who has access to the data and how is it being used?”
Microsoft’s Data Loss Prevention, a component of the Microsoft Purview suite, was vital to Fidelity Life’s approach.
Spark general manager for digital services and solutions Liz Urquhart said implementing a robust data governance strategy was imperative for any organisation aiming to harness the full potential of its data assets.
“A structured framework and the right tools helps to ensure data accuracy, consistency, and security, and empowers organisations with valuable insights to sustain competitive advantage in the market,” Urquhart said.
Fidelity Life is also a user of Spark’s ServiceFlex IT service management solution powered by ServiceNow.