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The Cost of Not Having an Information Lifecycle Management Strategy to Underpin eDiscovery
A 2009 Study by Unisphere Research, focused on members of the Oracle Applications Users Group, revealed that 56 percent of the professionals surveyed either didn't know if their companies had Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) policies or said they didn't use ILM. Another 16 percent reported that such policies were "under consideration." Of the firms surveyed, 24 percent had greater than 10,000 employees, and another 45 percent had between 1,000 and 10,000 employees. (Please see: "Most Enterprises Aren't Prepared for Information Lifecycle Management," by Ron Miller, 13 April 2010).
Without a sound Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) strategy, it is then not surprising that an organisation's eDiscovery system could (and no doubt will) collect data and documents that a sound and fully implemented records management retention policy would have scheduled for disposition months, or even years, prior to a litigation hold. The result is a much more costly exercise, not only in data collection and review, but also in potential exposure to unnecessary and avoidable risk.
Let's make a conservative estimate and say that out of a universe of 200GB of documents, 50% should have been scheduled for disposition prior to the commencement of the litigation. Forensics Consulting Solutions estimates that "It costs about 20 cents to buy 1GB of storage; however, it costs around $3500 to review that same GB of storage." (Please see: "Most eDiscovery Costs Wasted on Extraneous Information," by Mark G, Walker, et al, 13 April 2010.) So, you have just wasted $350,000. And remember that's just for one case, and a relatively modest amount of data.