The Evolution of Information Governance at Intel

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Intel Corporation, headquartered in Santa Clara, California, is a multinational company founded in 1968 by Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore. It deals in the business of semi-conductor chip making. The company invented the processors that are found in personal computers. It combines leading-edge capability of manufacturing with the capabilities of chip designs that are advanced. It is currently ranked as the 61st most valuable brand in the world (Uhlig, 2005).

Value proposition is a positioning statement which explains the benefits a company provides for who and how unique the company is in their provision. Intel’s value proposition is “simplify”. Currently, most, if not all of the companies, use technology. Intel’s role is to simplify. The company strives to simplify technology for their clients so that they can forget about technology and focus on their business ventures. It anticipates needs, prevents problems, and accelerates repairs should problems arise. The company constantly engages in activities and strategies on how to improve its processes. This is meant to streamline the experiences of their clients and to control their costs as a company that is involved with the competitive technology industry.

Intel’s key activity is the deliverance of IT-based solutions which include software services and platforms and at the same time encompasses various aspects of microprocessor designs. The company invented the x86 microprocessor series which is used in personal computers. This invention helped the company grow tremendously, both in terms of its capital base and in revenue. The company is also involved with the making of motherboard chipsets, integrated circuits and controllers, embedded processors, graphic chips, network interface controllers, and flash memory (Uhlig, 2005). The company has recently commenced research into electrical generation and transmission. It makes 3-D transistors which improve energy efficiency and performance. These transistors are currently being used in Intel’s 3rd generation core processors.

Intel had a market capitalization value of $140.84 billion as at 2013. The company has a vast data resource. It owned about 65 petabytes of data in 2013. This huge amount of data continues to increase at the rate of 40% per annum. The company also has over 100,000 employees and about 15,000 software engineers. It has acquired other globally recognized companies such as McAfee, Avago Technologies, Indisys, Basis, Omek Interactive, Aepona, Telmap, Silicon hive, and Mashery among others. Its expansion plans include building a microprocessor manufacturing plant in Arizona.

There are three factors that underlie the rise of Big Data. First of all, enabling access to faster, better, and cheaper storage facilities or services has made capturing and retention of large data amounts for long time periods easier (Tallon, Short, Harkins, Malcolm, 2013). This price-performance improvement level has made users to assume that storage is free so they do not make an effort to delete data that they don’t need. Second, firms are wooed which surrounds data analytics and the chances of digging up vital information through data mining. Users have, therefore, been led into retaining data for longer periods regardless of the fact that the data’s analytical value may not be useful in the short run. Lastly, regulations require that even when data stops being useful for decision making purposes it should be stored for a particular duration. Sometimes case laws demand that data of an organization be stored indefinitely.

The storage of large amounts of data poses risks to global companies. Business continuity is a major risk in terms of the success of any business be it global or SME. It refers to the ability of a company to recover its important business activities with little or no long-term disputes. Another risk is compliance. It is the ability to satisfy minimum standards set for data retention, control, and access. Next we have the risk of losing intellectual property to competition or third parties who do not have the company’s best interest at heart. This can happen through cyber-attacks, access violation, or theft. Lastly, e-discovery is a major risk. It is the ability to search efficiently, locate and recover important information within a set time frame mostly due to a court order (Tallon, Short, Harkins, Malcolm, 2013).

Data governance at Intel needed to evolve so that it could be more accommodating and less restrictive of the desires of the users to use sources of information or data in ways that are nontraditional and new (Tallon, Short, Harkins, Malcolm, 2013). This is the reason why the company employed the philosophy of Protect-to-Enable with regards to management of data. It took a different approach so that it could generate business value by maximizing on the use of its data and IT resources. This needed to be done within defined tolerable and quantifiable limits of risk. Moreover, the first era had mitigated only one risk form but increased other risk forms. There was need to lower risk portfolio and cost.

Intel IT raised awareness in its user community about the costs and value of its data using the Protect-to-Enable system (Tallon, Short, Harkins, Malcolm, 2013). The system takes into account client’s business needs and data classification. This process involves giving a user a cost that is associated with their usage of storage. Users are given questionnaires which finds the data’s criticality by assessing its business needs and determining whether or not it is important or if it is just business important. The outcomes form the basis for the data’s storage into the right tier.

References

Tallon, Paul P.; Short, James E.; Harkins, Malcolm W. (2013) The Evolution of Information Governance at Intel http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/92734280/evolution-information-governance-intelUhlig, R., (2005). Intel virtualization technology. Computer, 38(5), 48-56.