Less than one-fourth of corporations in the Global 1000 can fulfill their data retention and disposal objectives, leading to wasteful spending, legal risks and possible theft, according to findings in a new survey.

The Compliance, Governance and Oversight Council, in collaboration with the Electronic Discovery Reference Model, queried legal, IT and records maintenance leaders at companies in a wide range of industries on their information governance practices. The report stated that 98 percent of companies rated defensible disposal and retention of data as a key governance objective, though currently only 22 percent of those companies can fully handle that task.

Primary obstacles cited in the survey were disconnects between agencies or departments dealing with data, and a massive and expensive legacy systems drag on content management costs.

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While 85 percent of companies agree that consistent collaboration is critical in data governance, leaders in IT, litigation and records largely pointed the blame for data governance on each other, the survey found. And, of organizations with information oversight committees in place, less than 17 percent surveyed stated they felt that all of the correct stakeholders are involved.

Organizational miscommunication or misdirection on data governance leads to other problems as well, the survey conductors reported. Nearly all companies in the survey had quotas linked to information governance, which they stated more easily leads to theft or misuse. Gaps in data retention schedule development can make the entire governance schedule obsolete, with the survey noting that 77 percent of companies’ schedules were not electronically usable or still relegated to paper documents.

via Large Corporations Still Behind on Data Governance.