Your business is likely storing useless data

Your company computer is probably clogged with unnecessary data, and your company’s cloud is probably filled with things no one really uses any more.

Those are the results of a Crown Records Management/Censuswide survey, released on Clean out Your Computer Day.

Surveying IT decision makers in companies with more than 200 employees, it was revealed that more than half (55 percent) do not have a policy in place for email data retention, and 58 percent do not audit their paper-based data regularly. It was also said that they don’t destroy anything that’s no longer required.

Nearly two-thirds (60 percent) don’t practice regular reviews of files stored in the cloud or on-site, and 64 percent do not filter what goes into the cloud. Seventy-six percent don’t have a system helping them to differentiate between data which must and should not be retained.

"These results show that many businesses are keeping too much data -- and often keeping it unnecessarily", said Mike Dunleavy, head of customer development and experience at Crown Records Management. "This will not only slow down processes, but could prove expensive when, under new data protection regulation, people gain greater rights to ask for their personal data to be edited or deleted".

"Now is the right time to wrestle control of the situation. Managing data effectively begins with knowing what data you have and then establishing a robust, compliant and well-implemented retention schedule. The amount of data handled by businesses is only going to grow in future and so knowing what is a record, which needs to be kept, and what is just data noise is hugely important", added Dunleavy.

Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.

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