30% of Irish Companies Putting Business at Serious Risk

Origina, an Irish IT services company, published the results of a survey conducted with 140 senior Irish IT executives, to discover the level of understanding organisation’s have about the data they store, including compliance and security issues.

The survey was conducted online in September 2010 and was commissioned by Origina, and carried out in conjunction with independent research firm Pan Research. Respondents were primarily CIOs, IT directors and IT managers from Irish organisations of all sizes and sectors.

The results suggest that a significant number of Irish companies lack control of their core business data. This can cause major problems for Irish public and private sector organisations, as a number of high-profile recent cases have proved.

The results show that 30% of Irish organisations have no data protection controls in place, meaning that anyone in the business can freely copy any data held and transfer it outside the security perimeter, leading to substantial exposure for the company. This is despite the fact that the Irish Data Protection Commissioner is beginning to implement tougher fines for those businesses that do not take a measured and proactive role in ensuring that data is not lost or stolen.

Additionally, 37% of those surveyed do not seem to have a clear directive as to how long data should be retained within their organisation. With Irish and international data protection laws in place, this lack of understanding could lead to serious compliance and governance issues. To err on the side of caution, many companies store all of their data online indefinitely – including duplications – for legal and compliance purposes. This can be a very costly process. Irish organisations need to look closely at proactive data archiving and profiling solutions to effectively manage storage growth and ensure compliance, while reducing storage costs.

65% of respondents don’t know how much of their storage is consumed by backup copies or personal user files. Personal storage is a particular area that can give rise to compliance and legal risk, and is proving to be one of the most challenging areas for organisations to manage.

It was also discovered that 38% of organisations do not have a clear view of how much data is actually being stored within their organisation. This would indicate that there is no insight as to how much of the current storage infrastructure is being used to store old or inactive data.

On a more reassuring note, 84% of those surveyed said they do have a defined disaster recovery strategy in place. With a wide range of industry statistics indicating the huge numbers of organisations that go out of business if they cannot access data quickly after a disaster, it’s still vital that all Irish companies have an effective and tested disaster recovery plan that works.

Origina’s commentary on the results:
Rowan O’Donoghue, director of innovation and strategy, Origina, commented on the survey results: "It is remarkable that so many Irish businesses appear to have no data protection controls in place, despite all of the warnings about the impact of data loss. If companies lose sensitive data or intellectual property, it could seriously damage their reputation and ability to carry out normal business activities. Increasingly, we will also see larger fines being imposed as well. We were also surprised by the large number of respondents who don’t know how long data should be retained for and also have no idea how much data they are actually storing. Having a sound data management strategy which manages data from inception to disposal is key for businesses who want to minimise both costs and risk."

"The research highlighted a large number of problems in relation to the amount of storage being used by backup copies. The advancement of office workplace collaboration technology has fuelled the growth in data but also the number of copies of files. Industry analysts are predicting that storage is to grow over the nest 4 or 5 years by around 500%. This data will all need to be housed, protected, backed-up and retained. Irish businesses need to regain control or they will be swamped."

"This is not just about improving the bottom-line for Irish businesses. It’s about knowing your security and compliance obligations, while effectively managing storage growth. With much of Ireland’s future smart economy reliant on digital information, it’s vital that Irish businesses can securely manage all data created and stored," concluded O’Donoghue.

Methodology:
The survey was conducted online in September 2010 and was commissioned by Origina, and carried out in conjunction with independent Irish research firm Pan Research. Respondents were primarily made up of CIOs, IT directors, IT managers, Senior IT Consultants and Network/System Administrators from Irish organisations of all sizes and sectors. All interviews were carried out online.