How to Achieve Regulatory Compliance with Automated E-Mail Archiving

E-mail archiving and retention policies and guidelines are intended to help businesses protect themselves and their customers from potential harm. While this is the case, they also present unique challenges, particularly for smaller firms that may lack the internal IT resources to achieve full e-mail archiving compliance on their own.

Fortunately, a new breed of automated e-mail archiving solutions can help companies of all sizes achieve the compliance they require. These companies can realize tremendous peace of mind in knowing that this mission-critical business link is protected, all while saving valuable time and resources.

Why archive e-mail?

In today's business climate, regulatory bodies and companies have a number of reasons to enact an e-mail archiving policy to protect both themselves and their customers. In the financial sector, for example, e-mail archiving is mandated by the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and other agencies. It's mandated as a means of maintaining historical documentation pertaining to transactions, the transmission of sensitive business data, customers' personal identification data and many other purely preservationist motivations.

The persistently litigious nature of society provides substantial reason for other businesses and organizations that recognize the value of protecting themselves from the potential risk of legal action. By preserving e-mail communications for posterity, companies may benefit from the evidentiary value of historical e-mail conversations, both from a plaintiff's and a defendant's position. Discovery time and expenses can be cut substantially with an e-mail archival and retrieval system that makes searching and accessing the archived files simple and easy.

Next: Vested Interest in Compliance >>

>>> More Enterprise Applications Articles          >>> More By Ted Green