In recent years, “information governance” has become a buzzword in the corporate world—one that is not only clichéd, but often misunderstood. And while many organizations have made strides in attempting to understand what information governance is—a holistic approach to managing valuable corporate information by implementing processes, roles and controls to retain or remove information from business storage—very few have the slightest idea of how to implement a successful information governance strategy.

The key first and foremost is to identify the value of your information. As the value increases, so does the need for increased security. This really is no different than how we treat the possessions within our homes. Highly valuable belongings such as jewelry, cash and financial documents often are secured in a safe or locked in a file cabinet. Meanwhile, less valuable items like your dishwasher detergent and clothing are only moderately secured by the lock on your home's front door.

However, a key difference between our personal possessions and corporate possessions is that most of the valuables in our homes are tangible objects, while the most valuable materials in a corporate environment lie within its electronically stored information. With information security breaches threatening the corporate world on a daily basis, it's critical that companies identify and appropriately secure their most valued electronic information. And while it may be easy to determine which items are of high value in our homes, it's much more challenging to determine the value of the electronic information that is shared and stored across our businesses.