HP survey shows risk of dark matter in information explosion

That’s the chief finding of research among 1,020 CIOs and business unit heads across Europe, carried out for HP. It found these senior people stating that only 25% of company data is unstructured – in stark contrast to the 70% so often cited by analysts for data such as emails, documents and files from third parties that are outside internal systems. Erik Moller, EMEA marketing director, Information Management, Software at HP, refers to the difference as dark matter, and adds that its existence can pose a serious risk for businesses. “Companies will fail to fully understand their business information by ignoring their unstructured data,” he says. “Providing the right information at the right time is a critical success factor for compliance, risk management and competitive strength.” And he continues: “Organisations need a proactive information governance strategy to derive better business insights for improved decision making, collaboration, productivity and customer service. Such insights are the best way for CIOs to prove the value of information management to the board and to secure ongoing investment and support.”