Employees managing own data are risking corporate compliance

That’s chief among findings of a survey commissioned by email data management software firm C2C, which also suggests that almost a third of companies have mailbox capacity limits set at less than 100Mb. Other findings: 66% take their own measures to save email messages in order to ensure they aren’t lost, with a majority storing email outside their company system – in some cases via personal or home email accounts. Also, 67% need to search for an email that is more than three months old at least once a month, with 28% spending time searching about once a week or even daily. C2C’s survey also found that those who self-manage email to stay within quotas frequently delete messages and attachments and/or create a PST file – a method used in more than half of organisations surveyed. C2C CEO Dave Hunt says that over-reliance on PST files creates several challenges when companies have to meet legal requirements, since they do not have a uniform location and cannot be searched centrally for content, using traditional technologies. “e-discovery is becoming much more important in the context of civil litigation,” he warns, “and companies that fail to produce emails in a timely manner risk paying millions in fines, not to mention loss of reputation and possibly revenue.” Hunt unsurprisingly recommends installing an email data management solution. “[It] relieves users of unproductive mailbox management chores and provides the e-discovery capability critical to the long-term viability of any organisation,” he says.