Organisations can gain a number of benefits by implementing an email archiving system. The type of benefits realised will depend on the requirements, the situation and the type of organisation.
Some potential benefits include:
- Email archiving ensures that legislation and compliance issues are adhered too. Many organisations have to comply with strict codes of conduct or face being fined. These include banks and other financial services organisations as well as legal practices and organisations that retain medical records.
- Email archives can be used to retrieve information at a later stage if a suspected misdemeanour or criminal act has been suspected. This has become particularly important over recent years due to many incidents of criminal activities such as drug dealing using companies’ computer resources, and even issues around terrorist activities.
- In the past, organisations relied upon individuals to archive their emails. This would cause issues if archiving wasn’t carried out regularly or indeed, at all.
- A good systematic archiving system can reduce the costs of email retrieval in the event that an old email is required. In circumstances where a particular email is required for evidence, companies could potentially spend a fortune on people and resources trying to find the details. A good email archiving package will eliminate this and greatly speed up the process.
- It’s a good idea to have an email archiving system if your computer or network has major issues. At least there will be copies of emails available for you to retrieve and re-loaded onto the systems.
- Certain organisations are required to keep records of emails for a specific time period. An email archiving system will automate this process rather than leave it within the realms of an IT department or individual users.
- Emails can often contain specific information that might be incredibly useful if an organisation is in dispute with a client or regulatory body.
- Email archiving systems can reduce the need for large amounts of storage as they will compress messages and attachments, remove duplicates and if required, remove them from the system at the end of the required retention period.
- E-discovery. Electronic discovery is a relatively new term that allows organisations to use emails as evidence either for criminal, civil litigation or for potential use in company disciplinary procedures.
What type of companies would benefit from Email Archiving?
It is fair to say that most companies would benefit from an email archiving system, but the following are organisations that for legal and compliance reasons require it to be implemented:
- finance and banks
- police
- healthcare
- government
- local government
- defence industry
- construction