AIIM Report Shows More Than Half of Organizations Have Had Data-related Incidents in the Past 12 Months
Silver Spring, MD (PRWEB) December 02, 2015 -- Fifty-one percent of organizations have had data-related incidents in the past 12 months, including 16 percent suffering a data breach, according to new AIIM research launched today.
The new report ‘Information Governance – too important for humans’, revealed that 45 percent of respondents believe that a lack of Information Governance leaves their organization wide open to litigation and data protection risks. Furthermore, 41 percent of respondents admit that their email management is “chaotic” and 22 percent are reporting a negative financial impact from cases involving electronic records.
“The sheer volume of data in business is a major asset for most organizations,” said Doug Miles, Chief Analyst, AIIM. “But without effective Information Governance, that data also carries a potentially huge risk, both in terms of reputation and the bottom line. Lots of organizations are talking about information governance, but far fewer are actually doing it properly – that has to change in 2016.”
The severity and frequency of data incidents reported in the research has meant that there has never been more interest in Information Governance. For 28 percent of organizations, IG is high on the senior management agenda and more than half (53 percent) have recently launched new IG initiatives.
The ever-growing amount of data has led to a renewed acknowledgement that using automation is essential for IG. Sixty percent of respondents agree that automation is the only way to keep up with the volumes of electronic content, while 21 percent are already using automated declaration or classification of records.
Although cloud-based content and mobile access are by no means new initiatives for most organisations, this is yet to be reflected in many IG policies. Information retention, access security and data protection are covered by most respondents’ IG policies, but only 47 percent cover mobile access and mobile devices, including BYOD (39 percent). Only 36 percent have specific policies for cloud-based content sharing, while 57 percent say senior management are only interested when things go wrong.
“People readily acknowledge that their organizations’ IG policies are flawed and that automation is the future for effective IG,” continued Miles. “But this has not yet been borne out in the required changes to those policies – senior buy-in is absolutely critical to this – and along with automation, it is the most important factor in improved Information Governance that more accurately governs the modern ways of working with data.”
Once created, enforcing IG policy was named the biggest issue for 41 percent of respondents. Getting the right people interested and involved, particularly senior management, is the next issue (39 percent).
The research for “Information Governance – too important for humans” was underwritten in part by Adlib, AvePoint, IBM Enterprise Content Management, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Iron Mountain and OpenText. The full report can be downloaded here.
The survey was taken using a web-based tool by 398 individual members of the AIIM community between Sept. 4, 2015, and Sept. 30, 2015. Invitations to take the survey were sent via e-mail to a selection of the 80,000 AIIM community members.
About AIIM
AIIM has been an advocate and supporter of information professionals for 70 years. The association’s mission is to ensure that information professionals understand the current and future challenges of managing information assets in an era of social, mobile, cloud and big data. Founded in 1943, AIIM builds on a strong heritage of research and member service. Today, AIIM is a global, non-profit organization that provides independent research, education and certification programs to information professionals. AIIM represents the entire information management community, with programs and content for practitioners, technology suppliers, integrators and consultants.
Libba Letton, AIIM, http://www.aiim.org, 512-949-9491, [email protected]
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