A third of businesses admit to email chaos

Research says companies do not have clear plans in regard to email

A third of the UK’s largest organisations describe their email management system as being in 'complete chaos', according to research published this week.

A third of users also said their company either had no policy or they did not know their company’s policy regarding email archiving, according to survey from enterprise content management association AIIM.

The survey of 223 UK organisations shows many companies do not have any clear plans and procedures for dealing with compliance issues, especially concerning historical records which poses compliance risks.

Two thirds of UK organisations 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.

However, the need to address compliance of electronic information is accepted, as 90 per cent of end users agree the issue will not go away and it must take higher precedence in order to ensure consistent practices throughout their organisations.

But the meaning of compliance is interpreted narrowly with focus on government regulations and legislation - 60 per cent of users fail to realise that email information falls under compliance requirements for enterprise content management.

Other findings reveal that 70 per cent of organisations admit that content created by ex-employees is not reviewed or archived appropriately.

Highlighting a lack of compliance training, half of users said employees do not fully understand how to access current versions of policies relating to compliance.

The survey also points to senior management passing the buck to the IT department which is responsible for implementing initiatives in 80 per cent of companies.

Only a third of organisations surveyed saying such initiatives are driven by the company executives.

Compliance is proving increasingly time-consuming – 66 per cent of records managers and IT managers have found an increase in the time spent dealing with compliance over the last 18 months - with 10 per cent saying most of their time is dedicated to this.

Atle Skjekkeland, vice president of AIIM Europe, says the findings highlight a widely varying and inconsistent understanding of how to deal with sensitive company information.

‘It is clear that in order to deal with the pressures of compliance effectively, one of the key issues that must be faced head on by organisations is the management of electronic information,’ Skjekkeland said.

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