Roles are blending and lines are blurring, making collaboration and communication more critical than ever. It has become relatively straightforward to build low-cost, cloud-based solutions for application development and data analysis, often without involving IT professionals. Applications also can source data from cloud-based systems and on-premise systems alike, leading to complex data preservation and analysis situations.
That means IT may not be the sole source of all data in an organization, which can potentially complicate compliance with regulatory requirements or discovery requests. Legal teams may wrestle with concepts of data ownership and custodianship.
Addressing potential issues upfront is essential, bringing together IT, legal, compliance, and business leaders early in the planning process. As data continues to migrate into the cloud, each stakeholder needs to understand how cloud applications operate, what data implications they present, and how their respective responsibilities are affected.
—by Mike Weil, managing director, Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP
