Survey says: expect big RM IT investments, program challenges.

• Author: Hill, Brian
• Position: Forrester Research/ARMA International Survey - Records management, information technology - Cover story

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This analysis of the results of the fourth annual Forrester Research/ARMA International technology market trends survey highlights the need for records management (RM) leaders to work with IT and legal to ensure that planned IT acquisitions address RM compliance and information access objectives that will mitigate risks and costs for the organization.

Amid-2012 survey of more than 350 records management (RM) decision-makers indicates that major RM adoption plans figure prominently. In the fourth annual Forrester Research and ARMA International Records Management Online Survey, Q3 2012, 71% of RM leaders report current expansion efforts or plans to implement RM technology (see Figure 1).

In the context of this growing market, survey results highlight three key factors:

1 Decision-makers have big spending plans. Despite the current economic slowdown, 40% of our survey respondents expect that their organization's overall RM spending will increase at least 5% from 2012 to 2013 (see Figure 2). Upgrades to existing deployments, new on-premises RM applications, and consultant and integrator costs lead the list of planned expenditures.

2 Buyers expect to source from a wide range of suppliers, but Microsoft stands out. In a fragmented field, 31% of respondents anticipating RM purchases plan to source from Microsoft. Among those with Microsoft RM plans, however, 37% expect to augment Microsoft SharePoint with an integrated third-party vendor application for RM.

3 Records managers will pursue multiple pressing issues in bolstering their programs. In the next 12 months, 81% of decision-makers consider improving RM policy consistency to be an important objective for their organization (see Figure 3). In addition to standardizing and simplifying policies, respondents expect strong focus on traditional RM compliance and information access objectives. Reflecting increasingly strong RM-IT team ties, approximately 70% of respondents state that applying RM technology to reduce storage growth and to apply controls to additional content types and applications will be important in the coming year.

RM Frustrations Are Formidable

In line with results from the past two years, about half of records management stakeholders report satisfaction with their RM applications (see Figure 4). Application shortcomings certainly can be challenging, but decision-makers state that these rank relatively low in their list of woes. Instead, they rate insufficient budget, lack of executive attention, limited integration with key applications, and staff, training, and organizational shortcomings as top obstacles to RM program success (see Figure 5).

Especially in economically turbulent times, budget constraints can pose huge obstacles across a variety of enterprise programs. Reflecting the growing importance of RM in many organizations, it's encouraging that survey respondents expect an increase in RM spending over the next year. Focusing on the next three most challenging elements provides insight into difficult scenarios faced by many RM leaders:

1 Many executives don't focus on RM. Often executives perceive RM to mainly be a dusty cost center--many see RM as a mix of warehouses, technologies, and a set of complex, costly steps requiring their reluctant attention due to compliance mandates. Twelve percent of records managers report that RM programs have no C-level or senior executive support within their organization. Certainly, RM has a long history of enabling organizations to meet their compliance obligations, but RM technology combined with solid defensible disposition practices can go a long way toward targeting IT objectives (e.g., trimming storage growth) and legal needs (e.g., cutting e-discovery cost and complexity).

2 RM programs struggle with integration gaps. Nearly two-thirds of records managers cite lack of integration with key applications as a major challenge to their RM program efforts. Limited application links between RM and e-discovery, archiving, and other tools frustrate potential for standardized retention, disposition, and other policy-based controls across multiple content and application types. Also piecemeal, disjointed...