While 82 percent of companies face external regulatory requirements, 44 percent still don’t have any data governance policy in place

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — October 2, 2013 — Rand Worldwide (OTCBB: RWWI), a global leader in providing technology solutions to organizations with engineering design and information technology requirements, today announced the results from its Rand Secure Archive (RandSA) division’s 2013 Rand Secure Archive Data Governance Survey.

With average volumes for electronically stored data expected to increase in the next year between 26 and 50 percent, respondents from a wide range of industries across the United States and Canada clearly articulated the need for a formal approach to data governance within their organizations. In fact, 82 percent of respondents know they face external regulatory requirements, but 44 percent of respondents still don’t have a defined data governance policy.

“We conducted this survey because we wanted to understand the maturity of the market when it comes to defining data governance strategies and adopting solutions that ensure compliance,” says Chris Grossman, senior vice president of enterprise applications at Rand Worldwide. “In analyzing the results, it’s encouraging to see that organizations are budgeting and putting IT initiatives in place to help them manage, save and access their electronically stored data, essentially data governance is no longer a ‘nice to have’ but rather a ‘need to have.’ This is a drastic shift from just 12 months ago when companies investing in this space would have been seen as early adopters. However, within the next 12 months, if companies are not investing in this space they’ll be seen as laggards.”

The overwhelming message from the survey is that organizations across North America are realizing the importance of data governance. And while they may not have advanced data governance solutions today, they have pre-determined annual budgets of between $200,000 and $500,000 to implement their data governance solutions. For the first time, a data governance survey has uncovered the monetary value that companies are placing on implementing a data governance policy. This new figure provides a benchmark for companies considering implementing a data governance solution.

The 2013 Rand Secure Archive Data Governance Survey Results free whitepaper which provides the complete survey findings can be downloaded at www.randsa.com/resources/whitepapers-reports.

Four key insights and their business implications

• 82 percent of respondents, both publicly traded and private companies, know they face external regulatory requirements, yet 44 percent of respondents don’t have any data governance policy. This indicates companies know they need to do more, but aren’t sure how to do so.
• Within the next year, almost 50 percent of those surveyed said they would be taking some sort of action on data governance, either an implementation or discussions about doing so. This indicates a shift in corporate thinking from simply being an emerging issue to a mainstream requirement.
• Two integral components of data governance are data archiving and backup. Although 98 percent of organizations have implemented a data backup solution, a resounding 75 percent of these organizations are not satisfied with their current solution. Only 11 percent of respondents indicated they were extremely satisfied with their current archiving solution. These statistics indicate a clear need for new, innovative and user friendly data governance technologies.
• More than 50 percent of those surveyed plan to implement an eDiscovery solution or upgrade their existing solution in the coming year. Surprisingly however, one-third of respondents had never heard of ‘predictive coding’ ― the fastest growing eDiscovery technology. With the ability to dramatically streamline data extraction, the survey findings show that predictive coding is currently in the emerging phase, but its adoption is expected to significantly grow in the coming months.

Methodology

The 2013 Rand Secure Archive Data Governance Survey was conducted online between August 13, 2013 and August 26, 2013. In total, 454 organizations across more than 11 industries participated in the survey. Industries included architecture, engineering and construction (AEC), finance and insurance, government, healthcare, IT services, legal, oil and gas, and manufacturing. Sixty percent of organizations surveyed had annual revenues of less than $100,000,000 and 67 percent had fewer than 5,000 employees. For the full methodology and the complete survey findings download the free 2013 Rand Secure Archive Data Governance Survey Results whitepaper at www.randsa.com/resources/whitepapers-reports.

About Rand Secure Archive

Rand Secure Archive, a division of Rand Worldwide, offers North America’s first and only Autonomy powered data archive, compliance and discovery technology for small to mid-sized organizations. For more than 20 years Rand Worldwide has been delivering technology solutions to customers. For the last 15 years the company successfully implemented and supported Zantaz enterprise email archiving solutions. Companies relying on CAD for their design engineering needs, IT, engineering, architectural, healthcare, legal and other organizations work with Rand Secure Archive to implement world-class data archiving and management solutions.

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