New Information Governance Report Reveals Email as Biggest Compliance Risk

BOSTON, MA--(Marketwired - May 17, 2016) - harmon.ie today released an industry report, "The One Email You Can't Ignore: The Risks and Business Impact of Failing to Treat Emails as Records." The report assesses the current state of managing email for information governance purposes, uncovers the obstacles and risks information governance professionals and their organizations face when it comes to maintaining and managing emails and documents as business records and includes previously untold accounts of the business and financial consequences associated with lost emails of record. Fielded in conjunction with records management leader Gimmal, the report finds that information governance professionals are overwhelmed by email and unable to classify and store it, making retrieval a major headache and leaving their organizations open to significant financial risk.

"The importance of being able to classify, store and retrieve the ever-increasing number of emails containing business critical information can't be understated," noted Yaacov Cohen, co-founder and CEO of harmon.ie. "The legal, compliance and business ramifications of mismanaging emails are very real, and businesses must make sure employees are able to easily capture all sources of business information to avoid potentially dire consequences."

The report surveyed more than 100 information governance professionals with 39 percent hailing from the C-suite, followed by compliance consultants, analysts, records managers and compliance directors respectively. Respondents work in a variety of industries including technology, government, energy, manufacturing, healthcare and more.

With emails representing a growing source of business records, companies must take stock and identify the threats posed. A quick snapshot of the top findings is shown below.

Recognition of email as a business record:

• Email now acts as one of the largest sources of business records, with most respondents indicating that five to 50 percent of all their organizations' emails meet the criteria of business records.
• Despite recognition of email as a source of critical business records, 77 percent of information governance professionals share that their organization has challenges with email compliance, making email the biggest compliance roadblock organizations face today - ahead of other electronic documents.

Financial risks associated with mismanagement of emails as records:

• Close to a quarter (23 percent) of information governance professionals shared that their organization has indeed suffered negative consequences from litigation, regulatory sanction or the threat of litigation related to an inability to produce emails as records.
• Over 50 percent of respondents indicate that the financial impact of not being able to produce emails when obligated to do so would be at least $1 million and close to one-third of information governance professionals say the potential financial exposure of not being able to produce emails could be over $5 million.

The search for business friendly solutions:

• The majority (79 percent) of respondents see the "Last Mile" of compliance and information governance as either 'important' or 'very important.' The "Last Mile" refers to the process of capturing, classifying and storing important documents and emails -- organizations can't be compliant with documents and emails they don't capture.
• Over three-quarters (76 percent) indicate that a single view and repository of email and business documents would benefit the business.

"Email is likely to represent over 80 percent of all records eligible for RIM compliance management," said Bruce Miller, principal at RIMtech. "Businesses need to recognize the financial threats posed by mismanaged email and deploy a solution that makes capturing, classifying and storing important emails simple."

To learn more about the role of email in RIM please join records management expert, Bruce Miller, harmon.ie's VP of Professional Services, Ron Johnsen and Gimmal's CTO, Brad Teed on May 18^th at 11:00 am ET for the live webinar, "Email: The Final Frontier for RIM Compliance."

Download the comprehensive report, which includes detailed analysis, stats and findings: The One Email You Can't Ignore: The Risks and Business Impact of Failing to Treat Emails as Records.

About harmon.ie
harmon.ie provides a suite of user experience products that empower today's distributed workforce to get work done on their own terms. We put people first, insulating them from technology complexity, enabling information workers to complete many workplace tasks directly from the friendly confines of their email client. For Microsoft customers, harmon.ie increases the adoption and return on investments for SharePoint by bringing it directly into Outlook. Thousands of enterprise customers count on harmon.ie to provide seamless information governance, collaboration, knowledge retention, and email and records management using SharePoint, Office 365 and other collaboration tools. harmon.ie is a Microsoft Partner of the Year Finalist and an IBM global partner.

About Gimmal
Gimmal delivers information management software that makes Microsoft SharePoint and Office 365 a true enterprise content management system. Gimmal's award-winning solutions enable businesses to consistently govern and manage their content wherever it exists across the enterprise. Gimmal products are cloud-ready, easy to deploy, cost effective, and they are supported by a team of experts. For more information, visit the website at gimmal.com for a tour of Gimmal products and solutions.