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Waterford Technologies: Survey reveals email burden affects UKworkers' productivity(M2 PressWIRE Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) RDATE:19112007 Buckinghamshire, UK - 19th November 2007 - Waterford Technologies, the leading provider of intelligent email management solutions, today announced the results of a survey among 100 UK business managers or above about their email usage. It found that over 71 per cent of respondents were frustrated' or very frustrated' when they reached their inbox limit because the volume of emails received inhibited their efficiency. Adding to this frustration was the number of non-business emails and attachments that are seriously affecting productivity levels as well as increasing IT costs due to email and storage requirements. Over 50% deleted email not read Workers are dealing with more email then ever before, with 35 per cent of executives receiving over 100 emails a day. However, not all emails were read with over half (55 per cent) deleting between 10 and 50 emails a day without reading them. Email newsletters are the highest type of deleted email (40 per cent) while is still a major problem with 32 per cent citing them as the second most deleted type of email. Ironically, spam generated by colleagues (Irrelevant emails that I was copied in on from colleagues') was the third most deleted type of email (22 per cent). The research corroborates a recent report by analyst house IDC that predicted that the size of business email volumes sent annually worldwide in 2007 will approach five billion gigabytes; nearly doubling the amount over the past two years. Lost emails cost UKbusinesses Retaining large volumes of emails in inboxes is also causing problems when it comes to retrieving important emails. 55 per cent of respondents spend up to 30 minutes a week looking for business critical emails they have sent or received. Based on an organisation with 1,000 employees earning an average of GBP30,000 a year and working 260 days, the estimated cost to the organisation of time lost searching for email will be GBP345,000 per year. The estimated cost does not include the cost of email storage. Rise in digital files Apart from Microsoft documents (e.g. Word, Excel and Powerpoint), picture files such as JPEGs and gif are the most popular form of attachments being sent (54 per cent). This highlights the rise in digital cameras, which are most often not for business purposes, and the rise of personal emails in the work place. Not only does this impact productivity levels, but also the size of these attachments affects storage and power consumption. In fact, respondents said the average size of attachments was between 1 and 5 MB (67 per cent). Unsurprisingly, PDF was the second most common type of attachment (33 per cent) received. Malcolm Etchells, managing director for Europeat Waterford Technologies, said: "With email volumes exploding, employees are reaching their inbox limits faster than ever before. However, it is IT departments that are feeling the brunt of the email burden because it is not cost effective to increase inbox limits as IT departments already struggle to cope with the storage demands put on servers. The solution is to have intelligent email management technology that can reduce the time employees waste on their email management as well as decreasing storage capacity and costs related to email. By automating the archiving process and storing attachments separately, companies reduce email storage by up to 50 per cent." Companies already benefiting from a more intelligent email management solution to reduce non-work email (some by nearly 40 per cent) include LA Fitness, Dorset Police and Winchester City Council. Research methodology The survey commissioned by Waterford Technologies in October 2007 was conducted online by an independent company, and polled a sample of 100 UKexecutives in management levels or above. Note to editor 'IDC Reveals the Future of Email As It Navigates Through A Resurgence of Spam and Real-Time Market Substitutes' (9 April 2007): http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS20639307 About Waterford Technologies Waterford Technologies is the leading provider of Intelligent Email Archive and Data Management solutions that allow organisations to visualise email and data usage, analyse data patterns, and to take appropriate action to improve and enforce policies for immediate results. With over 600 customers globally, Waterford Technologies provides a full range of email and data management and reporting products for archiving, compliance, legal discovery and storage management. For more information, visit www.mailmeter.com or call Waterford Technologies at 01628 858009. Waterford Technologies, MailMeter Archive and MailMeter are trademarks of Waterford Technologies, Inc. All other company names and product names are trademarks of their respective organisations. CONTACT: Alexandra Kedward / Tim Masih, Hotwire PR Tel: +44 (0)207 608 2500 e-mail: [email protected] ((M2 Communications Ltd disclaims all liability for information provided within M2 PressWIRE. Data supplied by named party/parties. Further information on M2 PressWIRE can be obtained at http://www.presswire.net on the world wide web. Inquiries to [email protected])). Copyright 2007 M2 Communications Ltd. |