Survey: companies must control e-mail use, storage.

• Author: Swartz, Nikki
• Position: UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis - Brief article

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

According to an April survey conducted by Osterman Research Inc. and sponsored by MessageOne, corporate e-mail storage and retrieval are not well-managed, and--with legal requests for e-mail growing rapidly--businesses and management are at risk.

The MessageOne "Survey of Rogue Email Practices" found that the average employee sends and receives a whopping 170 e-mails each day while at work. About one-third use personal e-mail accounts at least once or twice a week for business purposes, and 17 percent do so daily. Nearly 16 percent of respondents admitted to using their personal e-mail to avoid corporate review or retention of their messages.

Because e-mail has become a critical, and widely used, business communications tool, the fact that employees are conducting business through outside e-mail accounts--meaning there is no formal record of those e-mail messages--puts companies at risk.

The survey also reveals that when the...