Black holes cost billions

A study based on interviews with more than 200 British executives has indicated that UK businesses may be wasting up to £17 billion per year on so-called "information black holes".

60 per cent of respondents said they spent 15 minutes each day looking for corporate documents, and 53 per cent of the executives had to refer back to previously created documents.

36 per cent of those surveyed said employees at their organisation regularly prepared documents which already existed within the company.

Autonomy, which commissioned the study, said the problems of information "wastage" also applied to Australian businesses.

"The true extent of the impact of time wasted daily by employees is highlighted when you multiply those 15 wasted minutes across a company employing 1000 people," said George Zachariou, GM of operations in Asia/Pacific for Autonomy. "The time lost retrieving information equates to 250 hours each day - the equivalent of 33 people whose job it is to track down information."