Truck manufacturer Scania has reduced the number of junk emails and viruses affecting its IT systems by rolling out anti-spam technology.

The installation of software across Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa and Australia has allowed the company to slash the time its 16,000 computer-using employees spend sifting through and deleting unwanted emails each day.

It took the decision to install the MessageLabs software after discovering that more than 22 per cent of the emails it receives were unsolicited advertising or viruses.

'We were seeing a growth in spam email and a lot of time was being used by employees deleting them each day,' Anders Lindberg, product manager at Scania said.

'In May this year spam increased from 13 per cent to 22 per cent of the total amount of emails we were receiving and that's a lot of emails considering we receive 100,000 a day,' he said.

MessageLabs' software has also reduced the number of viruses and trojans reaching employees' inboxes by scanning emails to detect and quarantine suspected virus.

More than 14 per cent of the emails Scania received previously contained viruses, Lindberg says.

'Since installing it we have seen a reduction in spam and viruses coming into the company,' he said.

Scania hopes to make further financial savings by cutting down on the storage space used to hold the junk emails and avert the risk of IT outages resulting from virus infections.

'A security breach has the potential to not only disrupt day-to-day operations, but also to tarnish a company's reputation,' said Lindberg.

'We were looking for an email security solution that could reduce the risk to our users, data and ultimately our brand, while allowing us to maximise our internal IT resources.'

Installation time and costs were also reduced through the MessageLabs managed service, which operates at an internet level, cutting down the need for a major software and hardware roll-out.