'Information Glut' choking Australian organisations: report

Stephen Withers
Monday, 14 September 2009 18:00

IT Industry - Market

While government departments to this reasonably well, it is generally the case that information is regarded as an important assets, but its management is not so highly valued.

Williams believes that while Australia is under-skilled when it comes to information management, "I don't think we're lagging" in as much as other countries face the same problem.

In the private sector, the pharmaceutical industry tends to lead the way, largely because of the regulatory issues it faces.

Generally speaking, organisations need to develop the capacity to organise and protect data. "It could be a large task for some organisations, especially those which have not kept up with changes in this area, she said.

Williams especially welcomed the decision to include organisations with as few as 100 employees in the HDS survey. "SMEs are under-researched and under-considered, and less well-off in terms of [information management] expertise," she said.

"It was good to see data from Australia and New Zealand. There weren't any major surprises… but they do confirm the anecdotal evidence," she added.

The report on the HDS/Sweeney Research survey is available here [PDF, 2.8MB].