Unstructured Data to Be “Dark Matter� of Information Explosion

New research, HP Information Explosion Study, conducted by Coleman Parkes Research in August 2008. announced today by HP shows that whilst European CIOs and Business Unit Heads are benefiting from better management of their information, they are tackling only part of the problem. This significantly underestimates the amount of unstructured data generated which puts their business at risk. Unstructured data includes such things as emails, documents and files from third parties which lie outside of internal systems.

The research, which included a survey of 1,020 CIOs and Business Unit Heads across Europe, found that on average, companies believe that only 25 percent of their data is currently unstructured. In contrast, research by leading industry analysts indicate that more than 70 percent of information is actually unstructured data.

Just as scientists studying the Universe found there was a significant missing factor in their model – the ‘dark matter’, this delta between the two research findings appears to be the information ‘dark matter’ that can pose a serious risk for businesses.

“Companies will fail to fully understand their business information by ignoring their unstructured data,” said Erik Moller, EMEA marketing director, Information Management, Software, HP. “Providing the right information at the right time is a critical success factor for compliance, risk management and competitive strength. 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.”

Overall, the research results show organisations are embracing information management and support HP’s view that information management is directly linked to better business outcomes.

The top benefits of better information management identified by organisations include:

• improved collaboration and less duplication, seen by 84 percent of respondents
• improved customer service, seen by 83 percent of respondents
• better segmentation of data for business use seen by 81 percent of respondents

Brunel University in west London is a good example of an organisation that is managing information much more effectively by putting the right policies, processes and technology in place. In 2007 Brunel University found its information management systems were struggling to cope with the increase in information generated across the university. Concerned that this would affect its ability to respond to enquiries accurately and meet compliance standards, Brunel chose to implement the HP Integrated Archive Platform.

”Our information management goals were to find a platform that could cope with our rising data volumes and give us reliability of search and storage as well as much quicker turnaround of official search requests,” said Iain Liddell, policy development manager, Brunel University. “By using the HP Integrated Archive Platform we have been able to analyse our business and academic research quickly, reduce the time needed to search and track important data such as email correspondence and increase the accuracy of the information we gather in response to enquiries or disputes.”

Key UK Research Findings:

• In the UK the main benefits seen within businesses from better information management include:

• Improved customer service or experience (seen by 75 percent of respondents who identified it as a potential benefit)
• Sustained/increased competitive edge (seen by 69 percent of respondents who identified it as a potential benefit)
• Improved collaboration between departments and less duplication of work (seen by 67 percent of respondents who identified it as a potential benefit)

• UK companies estimate that 29.4 percent of their data is in unstructured form.
• As with the European findings, the top challenge for better information management in the UK is getting employees to use the right applications to their full potential, cited by 53 percent of all UK companies surveyed
• On average UK company employees use only 20.7 percent of the information management tools and technologies available to them effectively
• 36 percent of UK companies find duplication of existing data a key challenge, while 29 percent find securing board level investment for new tools and applications an issue, a figure far lower than the EMEA average

About the survey
Coleman Parkes Research conducted 1,020 structured telephone interviews with CIOs and Business Unit Heads in large organisations (counted as +$1 billion turnover or +250 employees) in the following countries: Austria, Belgium, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Norway and Sweden. Fieldwork was carefully controlled to ensure the required coverage within country and vertical sector. All fieldwork was undertaken in late July and August 2008. Average interview length was approximately 12 to15 minutes. All interviews were carried out by fully trained interviewers working to IQCS guidelines and the entire project was conducted in strict accordance with the MRS Code of Conduct.