E-anxiety at record levels: analyst

September 9, 2009:Your records manager is nervous. According to a survey conducted by Forrester Research in conjunction with industry association ARMA International, very few records managers express high e-discovery confidence.

Barely 20 percent of records management decision makers report they are "very confident" that, if challenged, their organisation could demonstrate their electronically stored information (ESI) is accurate, accessible, and trustworthy.

Effective records and retention management programs play a big role in mitigating legal risk caused by more regulations and legal discovery of ESI.

In 2010, more than half of records management (RM) stakeholders expect to expand their technology deployments. Yet stakeholders also describe a changing and complex market, including vendor and budget uncertainty, low satisfaction with current solutions, plans to expand content types under retention management, new certifications, e-discovery concerns, and internal organizational changes.

The upshot? Records management professionals must master a complex set of issues in the face of growing legal, financial, and reputation risks.

Other key findings in the Forrester Research and ARMA International Records Management Online Survey, Q3 2009 include:56 percent of records management stakeholders plan to ramp up software spending in 2010. * More than half of RM decision makers are expecting to deploy additional licenses or to pilot or implement new products. It's clear records management is an important priority for organizations.;

* More than 26 percent of records management decision makers report they are "very confident" in their ability to meet privacy requirements, and 45 percent stated they were "somewhat confident;"

* Despite the need for integrating retention management functionality to a broader array of ESI and the critical need to synchronize e-discovery, archiving, and records management applications, in 36 percent of organizations, records management stakeholders are not included in the IT strategic planning process;

* More than 80 percent of records management decision makers use technology applications for physical records management. This figure dramatically decreases for ESI;

* Enforcement is still a weak spot for organizations as it pertains to their retention policies for ESI. Only about half of the survey participants use any type of technology solution to enforce retention policies for file shares, desktops, or other electronic assets. Remarkably, only 63 percent of records management stakeholders currently leverage technology to enforce retention management for e-mail.