How to Choose an E-mail Archiving Solution (
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Most businesses are still finding it hard to accept that they need an e-mail archiving solution, simply relying on traditional e-mail backups to solve the problem. But these companies underestimate the value of knowledge that is stored in corporate e-mail. The sheer amount of corporate knowledge stored in e-mail is enough to justify its safekeeping over long periods of time. Knowledge Center contributor Michael H. Bartlett explains why all businesses should use an e-mail archiving solution, and how to choose the right e-mail archiving solution for your company.
For businesses around the world, sending e-mail has become the primary means
of communication with people inside and outside of the organization. Business
transactions kick off in the form of an e-mail; most customers use e-mail to
negotiate contracts and agreements, and to exchange invoices and payment
information. E-mail is also heavily used by marketing departments to issue
mailshots to customers announcing new offers and special deals.
Our company is no different. We rely heavily on e-mail to communicate with
our customers, and to retain important details regarding business obligations
and customer expectations. This includes lengthy conversations about confirmed
or denied contractual changes and system specifications for a variety of
projects between our customers, the sales force, commissioning technicians, and
the service and warranty representatives.
Many businesses fail to realize that each e-mail message sent or received is
probably the only record they have of important transactions with a customer or
between members of staff. Many organizations underestimate the value of
knowledge that is stored in corporate e-mail. E-mail contains nearly 75 percent
of the information that individuals use on a daily basis. Therefore, the amount
of corporate knowledge stored in e-mail is enough to justify its safekeeping
over long periods of time.
Why businesses should archive e-mail
Within a single organization, perspectives on e-mail archiving and e-mail
management can vary widely. The legal department, for example, sees e-mail as
an essential factor in its discovery response strategy. Storage, backups,
problematic and corrupt PST files, overloaded e-mail servers, and performance
are the IT department's major concerns. The compliance team is concerned about
preservation and control issues, while employees want access to all of their
e-mail messages from anywhere in the world to improve productivity.
Whichever way you look at the issue, a company can ill afford not to archive
e-mail, because it never knows which e-mail message it will need at a future
date. That e-mail message may be a "to-do" list compiled by sales,
but it may also be an e-mail message that could save a company thousands of
dollars in legal fees and fines.
A perfect example comes from an experience we had with one of our customers.
We were quickly able to show our company's management team why the investment
in an e-mail archiving solution was worthwhile (which proves to be a difficult
task for any IT professional). Shortly after installing the e-mail archiving
solution, there was a dispute regarding whether or not our technicians had
replied to a customer concern about the suitability of a component they were
hooking up to a piece of our equipment. While both our technicians and the
sales force claimed that they had responded, stating that the component was not
compatible, nobody could find the e-mail response to the customer.
But within 5 minutes, my team was able to find the e-mail message using a
keyword search, as well as the whole string and conversation. We also found the
reason why nobody could find it in their Exchange mailboxes: The e-mail with
the key to the puzzle had been sent through a couple of techs and, finally,
through a department head who nobody had included in the original list of
possible responders.