Effective data management has become non-negotiable in today’s digital business environment. While many organizations rely on digital tools like SharePoint, Salesforce, and cloud drives, poor data governance can hinder decision-making, increase risk, and damage productivity. This blog offers practical, scalable strategies that IT leaders can implement without overhauling systems overnight.
From project reports to client communications and forecasts, data underpins every aspect of how a modern organization functions. Most of this information now lives in digital ecosystems or stored in collaborative platforms like SharePoint, Teams, Salesforce, yet it’s often fragmented, duplicated, outdated, and difficult to access.
Poor data management takes a toll on organizational efficiency, increases enterprise risk, and ultimately defeats the purpose of collecting and storing the information in the first place.
And with many organizations now piloting or scaling AI-powered tools, poor data hygiene becomes even more damaging. If foundational data is inconsistent or incomplete, the outputs of any intelligent system, whether predictive models or internal search, become unreliable.
Keeping your organization’s data clean, secure, and accessible should be a top priority for IT leaders, even if the payoff is not immediate. Here are 5 best practices to help you improve your data management without starting from scratch:
Review your current data assets to look for where staff time is being wasted or where data issues have caused errors or inefficiencies. Ask:
Modern tools (especially those incorporating AI) can help flag duplicates or inconsistencies. But these features only deliver results if your underlying systems are well-configured and integrated. Choosing vendors that support these capabilities with strong implementation support and user enablement is key.
Critical knowledge shouldn’t live solely in someone’s head or a folder last touched in 2022. When information isn't routinely captured and shared, teams lose alignment and momentum. On the flip side, if there is unnecessary, repetitive, or out-of-date documentation useful information gets lost in the noise. To strike the right balance:
IT systems alone won’t solve your data problems, user habits matter just as much. SharePoint, common drives, and email attachments can quickly become a mess. Common missteps:
Management MUST lead by example when using repositories and plan for “future growth”. Even widely used platforms — from cloud drives to relational databases — may not scale well without the right governance. Guidelines to strengthen usage:
Consider not just the tool itself, but the vendor relationship. Does your current provider offer scalable pricing, data portability, and roadmap alignment? A feature-rich platform won’t deliver results if your teams don’t have the support to use it well.
Be incremental, not ambitious. Large-scale migrations sound strategic, but they often stall due to overpromising and underdelivering. IT history is full of major projects that failed because too much was promised/attempted, try this bite-sized steps instead of a massive one-step change:
Some teams are experimenting with AI-based content migration tools, but even these need defined parameters and close human oversight to succeed. The goal isn’t just automation, it’s better structure and governance.
IT decisions are often made for today’s needs, not tomorrow’s scale or complexity. Will your system still serve the organization when headcount doubles or compliance requirements shift?
Modern data management requires:
If you're considering AI-enabled platforms, ensure your vendors have a strong stance on data privacy, model transparency, and user permissions. It’s not just about features, it’s about trust.
Data is more than an IT issue, it's a business enablement tool. When your data is well-managed, your people are more aligned, your decisions are faster, and your organization runs smoother.
Small steps toward better data management can yield significant returns in efficiency, transparency, and user satisfaction, and that’s exactly the kind of value leadership expects from IT today.
Sometimes the biggest impact that IT professionals can have relates not to technology but to process. For organizations of all sizes, there are simple ways to improve how data and information is managed and shared.
Stratford can help you assess your current data ecosystem, identify opportunities, and implement scalable, secure systems that support long-term business performance.
Contact us to schedule a strategic IT consultation or dive deeper into our IT services:
A version of this blog post was previously available. It has been updated with new content and re-released.