Over a third (38 percent) of large organisations across the UK admit that their e-mail management system is in ‘complete chaos’, according to the findings of a survey released by AIIM on ‘Compliance and it’s impact on Information Management’. The full results of the survey will be available at Documation UK in Olympia, London on the 18th-19th October. 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.

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 percent 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.

The survey report says that companies have a ‘disturbingly narrow view of compliance’ and what it really means for their organisation. Only 16 percent understand that the broader concept relates to information within enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management systems, with over 60 percent of users failing to acknowledge that e-mail information falls under compliance requirements for enterprise content management. Instead, awareness of what compliance means for their organisation centres around well publicised government regulations and legislation, bypassing the fact that compliance extends far beyond regulatory concerns to all company information management processes.

Other key findings from the AIIM compliance survey 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 percent) 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 percent of end users feeling that there is no widespread understanding of exactly what electronic records are and how they should be retained.

* Only 27 percent of organisations archive e-mails outside of Outlook in fully searchable and traceable e-mail or document management systems. Some 16 percent of organisations add to the paper mountain by printing paper copies of important e-mails for filing. A worrying 7 percent 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 percent of companies.

* Two thirds (66 percent) 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 10 percent 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. 223 UK organisations took part – with half of the organisations employing in excess of 1000 employees.

•Date: 22nd Sept 2006• Region: UK•Type: Article •Topic: Operational risk
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