6 August 2012 - There are many barometers for value: the Kelly Blue Book for cars, the discounted cash flow method for stocks, and the currency exchange for money. For data however, conducting a valuation can be much more complex and there is no one method. For example, a single smoking gun email in litigation could be incriminatory or exculpatory in “bet the company” litigation. Organizations, particularly in retrospect, would value this email as priceless. However, in periods where there is no litigation, organizations tend to ignore their ever-growing data volumes without any consideration for this seemingly innocuous data.

In any valuation exercise, the goal is to maximize the value and minimize the risks of data in a defensible manner. For organizations that have no in-house archiving or eDiscovery capabilities, is the irrelevant data worth the money it costs to review? The answer is usually no. Spam is spam.

For more from Allison Walton of Clearwell Systems please click here.