You Don’t Know What You Don’t Own: Data Stewardship Gaps in the Cloud Era

Who Owns the Data?

In most organisations, no one can confidently say:

• Who owns key SharePoint sites

• Who maintains access controls

• Who reviews external sharing

• Who retires stale Teams or content

And without ownership, governance can’t exist.

The Cost of Poor Stewardship

Without structure, environments accumulate:

• Orphaned sites

• Duplicate storage

• Abandoned data with regulatory implications

• Audit failures due to poor retention practices

Even the best DLP and labelling policies can’t fix cultural drift.

What Stewardship Should Enable

Effective data stewardship creates:

• Clear data boundaries

• Lifecycle planning

• Role-based access reviews

• Ownership models tied to business units

But most environments treat collaboration as set-and-forget.

The Gap Is Governance, Not Tools

Microsoft gives you the tools. But who’s watching how they’re used?

Cornerstone’s Data Health Check helps you take back control - and create clarity around ownership, usage, and policy.

Let’s make data accountable.

The Data Health Check evaluates how your business-critical information is accessed, shared, and protected across SharePoint, OneDrive, and Exchange Online. It helps you identify data exposure risks, optimise DLP and sensitivity labels, and align with compliance obligations.