Increase your GRC Risk Awareness with Data Archiving through Process Improvement and Documentation

Risk Awareness, according to PMI, is “the raising of understanding within the population of what risks exist, their potential impacts, and how they are managed” (italics added). Risk awareness is usually discussed by PMs and identified in Project Plans and should influence all team members’ decisions but often does not.  This applies to Archiving projects as well as other enterprise projects.

Auditors love procedures!  Both within the audit department and without, following published procedures is key to preventing audit issues.  Auditors implement and follow many Analytical Data Analyses (ADA), including regression analysis, trend analysis, and intriguing statistical tests such as Benford’s law.  Data Archivists must also follow published procedures in the form of archiving approaches and job plans including variant and customizing detail created as project artifacts.

The primary artifacts for any archiving project will define these procedures.  They are the Summary DVM Report and the Detailed DVM Plan, both of which should be published (i.e., available within the organization).  These process documents explain in concrete terms the processes controlling each organization’s archiving processes, illuminating the risks, and increasing each team member’s risk awareness.

Some of the risks specific to Data Archiving projects are data corruption or loss during archiving, excess latency or incorrect results when reading archive data, as well as data integrity within the archives during storage.  Identifying these inherent risks is important – but actually addressing these risks with processes and controls is paramount to project and organizational success.

PCC, using Machine Learning and AI, and leveraging SAP standard ADK routines address each of these key risks so that as stated above, we can not only understand the risks and their impacts but also effectively manage each of these risks with solutions designed specifically for that purpose.

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The author is a seasoned expert in data management and risk mitigation strategies, with extensive experience in implementing SAP ARCHIVING solutions to enhance organizational efficiency and compliance from start to finish.