An increasingly mobile workforce has led to 90 per cent of IT departments worrying about compliance associated with regulatory demands.
That's according to a report by collaboration software solutions provider Intralinks, which surveyed 800 organisation across the globe about the effects of economic and information security trends on corporate IT policy.
In addition to nine in 10 IT departments being nervous about compliance, 49 per cent believe they'll need to change their existing policies in order to meet regulations in future.
Meanwhile, in order to make tasks easier, mobile employees are using cloud storage solutions such as Dropbox or Google Drive to store and transfer documents, increasing the risk of corporate data and IP being compromised.
"Globally, organisations are recognising that workforce productivity levels are at their peak when employees work on their own devices on the move, but this brings inherent risks," said Richard Anstey, Intralinks CTO for EMEA.
"Businesses have rational concerns on complying with international regulations, and ensuring the protection of corporate IP," he continued.
"Companies are having to unite a growing community of mobile workers, partners and suppliers in the sharing of sensitive information, but are unfortunately facing a number of barriers from a control management perspective, which presents a number of challenges when answering to the authorities."
The report also suggests mishandling of information is a regular occurrence in over half of organisations, with 53 per cent having sent an email to the wrong person. Intralinks claims that misuse of collaboration tools is often the source of information mismanagement.
"We have invested a lot of time talking to global businesses about their enterprise collaboration needs and the inherent security risks," said Anstey.
"Organisations have limited insight into what content is being shared, where it is being shared and who is sharing it. Because of this, companies are finding it increasingly difficult to strike that fine balance between usability and diligent control when evaluating their collaboration strategy.
"From the intelligence collected, this research paper advises businesses on best practice guidelines for implementing collaboration tools to ensure regulators are appeased, corporate IP is protected and employees remain productive," he added.
