Firms in 'chaos' over e-mail compliance
September 26, 2006
Firms in 'chaos' over e-mail compliance. Check it out:(The Birmingham Post Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) More than a third - 38 per cent - of large organisations across the UK admit their e-mail management system is in "complete chaos" according to the findings of a survey released by specialist firm AIIM on compliance and its impact on information management.
The survey also found that the same number of end users admitted that their company either had no policy or they didn't know their company's policy when it came to e-mail archiving.
In fact, a third of UK organisations do not have any clear plans and procedures for dealing with compliance issues, especially concerning historical records, which poses a number of compliance-related risks.
Two thirds describe themselves as being in the very early stages of implementing compliance initiatives, with a quarter of them not having begun to develop any compliance-related strategy at all.
The survey also showed that over 90 per cent of end users agree that compliance concerns relating to managing electronic information are here to stay and compliance must take a higher precedence in order to ensure consistent practices throughout their organisations. Companies have a disturbingly narrow view of compliance and what it really means for their organisation.
Only 16 per cent understand that the broader concept relates to information within enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management systems, with over 60 per cent failing to acknowledge that e-mail information falls under compliance requirements for enterprise content management.
Other key findings include:
Half of the users surveyed admitted that employees do not fully understand how to access current versions of policies and procedures or other critical corporate information. This highlights the deeper issue of training employees to understand and cope with the implications of compliance.
Over two thirds (70 per cent) of organisations admit that content created by employees who have then left, is not actively reviewed or archived appropriately
When it comes to compliance, the weakest link in the information management chain is electronic, not paper related, with nearly 60 per cent of end users feeling that there is no widespread understanding of exactly what electronic records are and how they should be retained.
Only 27 per cent of organisations archive e-mails outside of Outlook in fully searchable and traceable e-mail or document management systems. Some 16 per cent of organisations add to the paper mountain by printing paper copies of important e-mails for filing. A worrying seven per cent delete all e-mails after three months and rely on back-up tapes for archive.
Only a third of all the organisations surveyed say that compliance initiatives are driven by the company executives with the burden of implementing them falling heavily on the IT department in 80 per cent of companies.
Two thirds (66 per cent) of records managers and IT managers have found a marked increase in the time spent on compliance related activities over the last 18 months with ten per cent of these declaring that the majority of their time is dedicated to this.
The research was carried out by AIIM from an Industry Watch survey that was conducted during May and June 2006. Some 223 UK organisations took part - with half of the organisations employing in excess of 1,000 employees.
Atle Skjekkeland, vice-presdient of AIIM Europe, said: "These findings highlight a widely varying and inconsistent understanding of how to deal with sensitive company information, clearly indicating the struggle that companies are facing in mounting systematic policies to meet the compliance challenge."
The full results of the survey will be available at Documation UK in Olympia, London on the October 18-19.
Copyright 2006 Birmingham Post & Mail Ltd.
Related Tags: compliance related, compliance, organisations, information, management, survey
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