Report: e-mail is greatest compliance risk.

• Position: E-MAIL

Information governance (IG) professionals are overwhelmed by e-mail and unable to classify and store it, a recent report from harmon.ie and Gimmal found. As a result, retrieving e-mails is a major problem for most organizations, exposing them to significant financial risk.

The report, "The One Email You Can't Ignore: The Risks and Business Impact of Failing to Treat Emails as Records," surveyed more than 100 IG professionals in a variety of industries with 39% from the C-suite, followed by compliance consultants, analysts, records managers, and compliance directors. The report assessed the current state of managing e-mails for IG purposes, including the obstacles and risks professionals and organizations face when it comes to managing and storing e-mails as business records.

"The importance of being able to classify, store, and retrieve the ever-increasing number of emails containing business critical information can't be understated," noted Yaacov Cohen, co-founder and CEO of harmon.ie. "The legal, compliance, and business ramifications of mismanaging emails are very real, and businesses must make sure employees are able to easily capture all sources of business information to avoid potentially dire consequences."

E-mails now represent a large proportion of an organization's business records, and companies must recognize their importance, the report notes. Other findings include:

* E-mail is now one of the largest sources of business records, as most respondents indicated that 5% to 50% of their organizations' e-mails meet the criteria of business records.

* Despite viewing e-mail as a...