Companies will spend more on RIM in 2004.

• Author: Swartz, Nikki
• Position: Up front: news trends & analysis

Stringent new federal regulations on document retention and privacy as well the financial burden of new litigation-discovery rules, have sent Fortune 1000 companies scrambling to update their records and information management (RIM) programs.

A recent study conducted by Penn, Shoen & Berland Associates and commissioned by Iron Mountain revealed that Fortune 1000 companies are waking up to the importance of records management.

More than 60 percent of the 100 companies surveyed had updated their RIM policies within the past year. Nearly half of the companies surveyed also said they are planning to spend more on RIM in 2004 than they did in 2003--21 percent said they would spend "substantially" more.

Although 77 percent of those surveyed report they are making progress, companies still have a long way to go before their records management programs are up to par. The study revealed that a full 87 percent of those surveyed have failed to implement the tools needed to ensure efficient and automated records management. More than half--56...