Poor backup and archiving practices cost larger organisations dearly

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 05 August 2010 00:01

Business IT - Technology

An international survey has revealed a big gap between larger organisations' information management goals and their current practices.

A survey of more than 1600 senior IT and legal executives in 26 countries (including 150 in Australia and New Zealand) has found that while a large majority respondents realise that an appropriate information retention strategy will make it easier to delete unnecessary information, only about half have such a plan.

The survey was carried out by Applied Research for Symantec, and targeted organisations with at least 500 employees.

Among Australian and New Zealand respondents, 96% said they believe in the value of a formal retention policy (vs 87% worldwide), but only 50% (46%) actually have such a policy.

When iTWire asked Craig Scroggie, Symantec's vice president and managing director for Australia and New Zealand, whether he was surprised by these findings, he replied "in one word: no."

Scroggie went on to say that the best and worst practices in information management can be seen in the region, and that Applied Research's findings matched Symantec's experience in talking to customers.

What does he recommend organisations should do? Please read on.