E-mail difficulties place businesses at risk, cause work stress, and jeopardize jobs, according to recent research

Nearly half of the respondents to an independent study conducted across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, say they would have difficulty retrieving particular e-mail messages if requested, and more than a third of the IT staff questioned find the loss of e-mail more traumatic than events such as a car accident or getting a divorce.

With the rapid adoption of e-mail as the primary vehicle for business communications, e-mail has become as mission-critical a business application as ERP, CRM or other back office software. Additionally, regulations under consideration around the Middle East have accelerated the burden placed on IT departments to effectively store and manage corporate e-mail.

While 99% of companies today report that they back up e-mail and attachments, research shows that 56% of these companies have at least some of their e-mail locations excluded from automated back-up. And while 39% of respondents think e-mail could be used as legal evidence for or against their company, 46% say it would be difficult to locate and retrieve a particular e-mail on the system if it was requested.

Results of this study also indicate respondent awareness that mismanagement of electronic communications can put businesses at risk. Five percent of those surveyed say e-mail and attachments already have been used as legal evidence for or against their company, and 15% know of government regulations stipulating a length of time for storing e-mail - varying from 2 months to 15 years. Yet, while 92% of the organizations surveyed claim to have the ability to recover e-mails, research reveals that only one-fifth (18%) can recover e-mails from further back than a year, 30% are able to recover back only to one month, and a staggering 11% can only recover from the previous week or less.

"E-mail retention and management procedures are under increasing scrutiny in many regulated industries. With regulatory bodies escalating their enforcement of compliance, an urgent need exists for proven solutions that enable efficient management of storage environments in accordance with tighter records management regulations," said Peter A. Gerr, senior research analyst, Enterprise Storage Group. "In many regulated industries, e-mail is the primary communications tool. By failing to have adequate procedures and systems in place to ensure appropriate retention and security mandates are met, both IT organizations and business leaders are unnecessarily exposing themselves to legal ramifications which could place their business at risk."

The survey also found that properly functioning e-mail systems are so critical that 68% of companies say users get irate within as little as 30 minutes without e-mail access, and within just 24 hours of e-mail system failure, almost one-fifth of IT managers say that their jobs would be on the line. For over a third (34%) of CIOs and IT managers, a week without e-mail is more traumatic than events such as a minor car accident, moving to a new home, or getting married or divorced.

Yet, when unplanned downtime does occur, only 4% of IT managers say it takes less than one hour to restore, while 15% say it takes an hour, and 41% say it takes over an hour to restore the entire system - including 9% who take 24 hours or more. An alarming 39% do not know how long it would take to restore their e-mail systems.

"The changing regulatory environment in the Middle East is causing a fundamental shift in the way that regional organizations view e-mail as a communications tool," said Mike Hynes, Regional Director, VERITAS Middle East. "In the coming months, a failure to maintain accurate records may not only cause headaches for IT managers, but also serious legal ramifications for businesses here."