A QUOCIRCA INSIGHT REPORT
March 2005
Contacts:
Bob Tarzey
Quocirca Ltd.
+44 1753 855794
bob.tarzey@quocirca.com
Email and Corporate Governance:
Europe plc’s position on compliance and data retention
Email is the most widely used business communications tool and is responsible for the
majority of exchanges by employees, both internally and externally. It is the interactions
between individuals that comprise much of a company’s business records, consequently
the records kept of the day to day business activities are more detailed than ever. This
data can be valuable to businesses if managed well, but if not it can be their undoing.
IT managers of European enterprises are concerned about far more than just compliance
when it comes to handling the issues that govern their businesses
When asked about the drivers behind good corporate governance, positive ones like protection
of brand name, customer confidence, productivity and competitive advantage all figured as
highly as negative ones, like avoiding fines, litigation and regulatory compliance.
They also recognise that the right IT infrastructure and processes can help them achieve
these goals and cover most of the demands of regulatory compliance at the same time
Only 13% felt they needed a separate IT solution for each regulatory area, the remainder
believing that only slight modifications were required as new regulations came into force.
The core demand on IT departments to enable good corporate governance is to keep the
right information and to be able to retrieve it when required
The volume of data stored these days by enterprises is huge, over 90% measuring it in
terabytes. For 75% this data goes back 5 years or more. Knowing what data can be safely
deleted and when, is going to make long term IT management simpler.
Today email is by far the most important record of employee communications that
businesses are storing
38% of those who were able to make an estimate said email was already over 25% of all data
stored, but 90% said this had been increasing and expec