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Managing information risk – European business must do better

By on July 8, 2013 in Information and Knowledge Management, Information Security, Intellectual property, Management, Mobile Devices, Post, Research, Social Media

European companies are improving when it comes to managing information risk, but they must do even better.

PWC and Iron Mountain have published their 2013 Risk Maturity Index, exploring attitudes to information risk and examples of best practice in mid-sized businesses in six countries in Europe (France, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Spain and UK*).  Their findings suggest there has been some improvement in attitudes to information risk, but that there is still a long way to go.  Middle sized (250-2,500 employees) European companies are ‘ill equipped’ to navigate the complex information landscape.

Key findings of the study

  • Awareness of the importance of information risk management is growing
  • The average number of data breaches is growing 50% per year
  • 36% of companies are keeping all of their data ‘just in case’
  • Only 45% of companies have an information risk strategy
  • 42% of those surveyed are worried about the security of their company’s stored data
  • Only 25% consider their employees to be a serious threat to information security
  • 45% do not monitor employee social media use

National differences

Companies in the Netherlands performed better than in any other country.  They were more likely to have strategies and plans in place to deal with BYOD and minor data ‘mishaps’. They were also much more likely to have a corporate risk register.  Alongside companies in France, Dutch businesses were most likely to treat information risk at board level.

Hungary takes second place in the Risk Maturity Index.  Over the last 12 months, businesses have focused on raising employees’ awareness of information risk issues and providing relevant training.

Spanish companies lag behind those in other countries and are least likely to provide guidelines to employees or to have key security measures in place.

Best practice

  •  Information management and risk must be a board level issue
  • Information audits – identify what you have, where it is stored and how it is classified
  • Operate a policy of ‘controlled trust’

*600 senior managers were interviewed in mid-sized businesses in the six countries.

The White Paper is free to download from Iron Mountain.

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Connected Europe – the latest consumer figures

By on April 15, 2013 in Post

Forrester has released a European edition of its US consumers and technology benchmark report.  The State Of Consumers And Technology: Benchmark 2012, Europe explores changes in consumer behaviour in the EU5 countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK).

Key findings

  • Almost 75% of European adults go online at least once a month
  • Over half of them own two or more connected devices
  • 22% report they are online when they are outdoors
  • 14% are online in their cars
  • 58% of online Europeans have a Facebook account

National differences

Of the five countries studied, the UK has the highest percentage (83%) of consumers going online regularly and also has the highest average online shopping spend (10% have used a shopping app in the last month).  52% own a smartphone and 12% own a tablet device and 18% of them have a Twitter account

Germany has the largest online audience in Europe (over 46 million online consumer), with just under three-quarters ordering services or products online in the last three months.  Only 5% have a Twitter account

In France consumers are the least likely to own multiple connected devices and the least likely to own a tablet (7%), smartphone (42%) or other connected device.  7% have a Twitter account

In Italy 58% of adults go online each month.

In Spain 69% of adults go online monthly

Although the online populations are smaller in Italy and Spain, they are relatively active.  Two thirds of online consumers in each country have a Facebook account and they are more likely to be ‘creators’ or ‘critics’ of content rather than passive participants.

The full report is available from Forrester.

Digital Europe – the latest figures

By on March 25, 2013 in Mobile Devices, Post, Trends and Statistics, Web Technology & The Cloud

In 1996, 66% of the world’s internet audience was based in the US.  By 2012 87% of the world’s internet audience was based outside the US.  Europe is now the world’s second largest internet audience (after Asia Pacific) with 27% of the total, putting on 7% growth in the last year.

In its latest report (Europe Digital Future in Focus) ComScore analyses the latest European statistics and trends.

Key findings

The internet

  • There are 408 million internet users in Europe
  • Russia accounts for 15% of all of Europe’s internet users
  • Italy (17%) and Russia (15%) have the fastest growth
  • Once again, the UK leads the way in user engagement with an average of just over 37 hours per user per month

Mobile and tablets

  • There are 241 million mobile devices in Europe
  • At the end of 2012 all EU5 countries had crossed the 50% smartphone penetration milestone
    • Of the EU5 countries, Germany has the most mobile devices, followed by:
      • UK
      • Italy
      • France
      • Spain
      • Almost one third of UK page views are made via mobiles or tablets
        • The European average is 20%
        • The most popular smartphone activities are:
          • Accessing personal email
          • Weather reports
          • Social networking
          • Instant messaging services
          • Search

Mobile video

The EU5 has seen rapid growth in the last 12 months

  • Mobile video has grown 162%
  • PC video grew by 5%

Search

  • Google sites account for 86% of Europe’s search engine market
  • The figures show that users are not simply using search engines – they are searching within sites such as Facebook, eBay and Amazon too

Shopping and banking

  • 146 million Europeans visited comparison shopping sites
  • The Netherlands lead the way in internet banking – 66% of all internet users accessed online banking sites.  Only 18.8% of those in Switzerland did so

Newspapers

Taking the UK as a case study, the report looks at increased reach for newspapers via video and mobile.

  • The Sun has increased its reach by 16.9%
  • The Mail Online has increased its reach by 11%

The report also features country scorecards outlining:

  • Top 20 internet sites for each country
  • Top news/information sites
  • Top retail sites
  • Top online banking sites

For more information, see the comScore website.

Digital Work Life – social media and office politics

By on February 5, 2013 in Professional Development, Social Media

Digital Work Life is the latest in AVG Technologies Digital Diaries series. 4,000 adults in ten countries (Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, the UK and the US) were contacted.  The research found worrying gaps in the education and guidance that organisations give their employees about what is acceptable to share.  It also found that 53% of respondents believe that social media has eroded their privacy in the workplace.   This figure rises to 64% in the UK and the US.

Other interesting findings:

  • Over 25% have felt pressured into accepting a friend request from a colleague (34% in Italy).
  • Over 50% of UK and Australian companies have cyber-bullying policies.  This falls to only 23% in Germany and the Czech Republic and only 20% in France
  • 15% of US workers reported they had received a social media insult from a colleague
  • Nearly one in 10 of worldwide respondents has had a manager use information gleaned from social media against them or a colleague.
  • 60+% of US and UK respondents believe employers are responsible for online behaviour of employees during working hours – even if they are using personal accounts.  This dips to 27% in Germany

The need for education

It is vital that organisations educate their employees about social media etiquette and are clear about who is responsible and accountable for the use of social media tools.  A blog post by RL Stollar highlights what exactly can go wrong – and how quickly – when inconsistent policies meet an inadequate understanding of the role of social media.  The resultant ‘social media meltdown’ is a case study in how to get it wrong.

Key learnings

  • Employers should offer clear codes, guidelines or policies and clear examples of what is, and is not, acceptable social media behaviour
  • Policies are not enough. Education and awareness in the application of policies is vital
  • Employees should create – and follow – their own personal social media guidelines
  • Gen Y’ers in particular should think carefully about how they ‘transition’ their social media presence into the world of work
  • Create special ‘walled gardens’ for colleagues if you wish to restrict what you share.

More information on Digital Diaries can be found here.

Learning from 36 million Twitter users

By on October 15, 2012 in Post, Social Media

The social media monitor company Beevolve has studied 36 million Twitter user profiles around the world to produce some interesting Twitter trends and statistics.

  • 25% of Twitter users have never tweeted
  • On average a Twitter user follows 102 people
  • 10% of users follow no-one
  • An average Twitter user has 208 followers
  • 6% of Twitter accounts have no followers
  • Overall gender split – 53% female; 47% male
  • Female Twitter users outnumber males up to age 25. But after age 35, female users start dwindling relative to males.

The research points to the correlation between the number of tweets sent and the number of followers.

Top ten countries by % of Twitter users

  • US             51%
  • UK             17%
  • Australia       4%
  • Brazil            3%
  • Canada         3%
  • India             3%
  • France          2%
  • Indonesia      1%
  • Iran              1%
  • Ireland          1%

The rise of the ‘digital omnivore’

By on February 28, 2012 in Mobile Devices, Post

ComScore has published its latest report on the mobile landscape, analysing key trends and statistics from 2011 and predicting growth and usage patterns for 2012.

The report focuses primarily on the US, Canada, Japan and the so-called EU5 (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK) and explores the growth of smartphone adoption and shifts in digital media consumption.

Rapid adoption of smartphones

There are now more than 100 million smartphone owners in the EU5 countries, representing 44% of the total of mobile users.  In the UK and Spain smartphones have already exceeded 50% of the total mobile markets.  The popularity of smartphones and the wider availability of wifi networks are both contributing to an increased consumer engagement with mobile media – browsing the mobile web, downloading content or using apps.  The UK was second only to Japan in mobile media usage and this behaviour increased 9.2% across the EU5 in 2011.

Changing behaviours

Mobile devices (including e-readers and tablets) are already driving 8% of internet traffic in the US and the figures are set to rise globally.  Mobile devices are changing the ways in which people access digital content and interact with social networks.  Users are becoming multi-device consumers – now regularly using several ‘screens’ (including tablet and mobile devices) – to access mobile content.  These ‘digital omnivores potentially offer significant opportunities for app developers, publishers and advertisers and it is critical that they understand how users are engaging with content on the go.

Retail

The figures suggest that over half of US smartphone users are using their mobile devices inside ‘bricks and mortar’ shops, for a number of purposes including price checking/comparison, product reviews and finding discount vouchers.  Retailers need to understand how people are using the devices in their stores and look for opportunities to be gained from this behaviour.

Social networking

In December 2011, more than 48 million EU5 smartphone users used their devices to access social networking sites, or blogs, at least once.  More than 50% of them were accessing social networking sites nearly every day.  The most popular activities in the EU5 were reading posts from personal contacts (79.5%) and posting status updates (65.2%).

Social networking is set to become an important player for brands and advertisers, particularly as people increase their interaction with mobile content and use more location based services.