Gartner Confirms that the eDiscovery Software Market is Growing

Over the past several months I have been conducting some informal polls on LinkedIn regarding whether or not there was ever a recession in eDiscovery and if so, whether the recession is now over. As I expected, the feedback was mixed. I have also authored several Blog posts that contended that the eDiscovery market was actually expanding this year for those providers that were providing the "right" stuff at the "right" price. Not surprisingly, I got push back from those consultants and technology vendors in the industry who were in fact feeling the pressures of the current economic conditions and some support from those who were actually having pretty good years.

Again, not surprisingly, Gartner just released the results of a study that indicates that worldwide electronic-discovery (e-discovery) software revenue is on pace to total $1 billion in 2009, a 25 percent increase from 2008 revenue of $807.6 million. They went on to indicate that in 2010, the market is forecast to surpass $1.2 billion, a 23 percent increase from 2009.

Once again, I have to comment that the eDiscovery technology market is really great place to be right now. And, I can't wait to see what Gartner has to say about the Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) markets.

The other results as reported in the Gartner Study by Tom Eid, research vice president at Gartner was that transparency of business performance as aligned to governance, risk, and compliance regulations and subsequent organizational reporting, mitigating IT risk through the use of real-time and continuous controls monitoring for transactions, segregation of duties, application configuration, and master data and preventing business failure through fraud detection, improved user-level and application-level security, and corruption were the three important eDiscovery market catalysts that underscore the importance of linking business goals to IT risks and the ability to manage both. More to come on this in future Blog posts.

The full text of Gartner's press release is a follows:

STAMFORD, Conn., December 16, 2009 —   Worldwide electronic-discovery (e-discovery) software revenue is on pace to total $1 billion in 2009, a 25 percent increase from 2008 revenue of $807.6 million, according to Gartner, Inc. In 2010, the market is forecast to surpass $1.2 billion, a 23 percent increase from 2009.

E-discovery is the identification, preservation, collection, preparation, review and production of electronically stored information associated with legal and government proceedings. E-discovery technology can be provided as a stand-alone application, embedded in other applications or services, or accessed as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering.

“Increasingly, more organizations are being confronted with litigation regarding bribery and corruption, foreign corrupt practices, securities and financial fraud, government contracting abuses, and healthcare fraud,” said Tom Eid, research vice president at Gartner. “Such unplanned events underscore the need for more-effective enterprise information strategy and information governance policies.”

Mr. Eid said that the e-discovery market is in a period of simultaneous growth and consolidation that should last through 2011. Market and technology consolidation will continue during the next several years as vendors expand their product and service portfolios, obtain market-centric expertise, and acquire new customer bases. As the e-discovery market shifts from an emerging market to a high-growth market, Gartner expects new vendor entrants and nontraditional competitors to participate through technology partnerships and acquisitions.

Until now, vendor revenue for e-discovery has focused on the U.S., with approximately 90 percent of market revenue for 2008. However, going forward, market growth is also expected in common-law jurisdictions, such as Australia, Canada, South Africa and the U.K., as new civil litigation regulations are passed regarding privacy and disclosure. In addition, many organizations based in the U.S. have subsidiaries in countries around the world that will provide further pockets of regional growth.

“The December 2006 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedures (FRCP) in the U.S. regarding the discovery of electronically stored information (ESI) and passing of subsequent similar statutes in other countries, has really spurred market interest in e-discovery,” said Mr. Eid. “This is prompting many companies to rethink their overall information management strategies, from the policy level to the implementation level.”

Mr. Eid said three important e-discovery market catalysts underscore the importance of linking business goals to IT risks and the ability to manage both. The three core market catalysts are:

- Transparency of business performance as aligned to governance, risk, and compliance regulations and subsequent organizational reporting.
- Mitigating IT risk through the use of real-time and continuous controls monitoring for transactions, segregation of duties, application configuration, and master data.
- Preventing business failure through fraud detection, improved user-level and application-level security, and corruption.

Additional information is available in the Gartner report "Dataquest Insight: E-Discovery Software Marketplace Continues Its High Growth Pace." The report is available on Gartner's website at http://www.gartner.com/resId=1228213.