Schrock Media & Blog

Why Businesses Need Email Archiving Solutions

While the compliance requirements of email has been around for many years, there are still a high number of small businesses who are still not compliant. It is estimated that anywhere up to 60 percent of all small business have no form of email archiving solution. In an age where security is everything, this is unforgiveable, but the fact remains.

The case for email archiving solutions are many, including storage, legal implications, compliance, oversight and disaster recovery. Each of these are distinct challenges businesses of all sizes face, and ones email archiving solutions can directly address. Let’s take them one at a time and discuss them further.

Storage

Storage can be expensive. The larger and busier the organization, the more storage they are likely to need. Blindly copying files, or making backups of everything without having a structure is just wasting space. Businesses need backups, but email archiving solutions offer something different.

An email archive only stores the email data. It doesn’t need the surrounding system files, or other unnecessary bulk a backup would generate. It will retain the email and any attachments, and that’s all. This requires much less storage space than a backup, therefore, costing much less.

Legal Implications

The first legal implication email archiving solutions address is that of compliance. Every company in the country has some kind of watchdog or regulator. They will all have varying requirements as to how a company records and retains data. A solid email archiving solution will address those needs.

The other legal implication is litigation. Any company that functions commercially should protect themselves from lawsuits at all times. Having a reliable, trustworthy email archiving solution allows evidence to be collected and used in any defense.

Compliance

Leading on from those legal implications, compliance is still a very big noise in business. Strangely, despite it still being high on the agenda, it passes many businesses by. As already mentioned, industry regulators and the government itself has a set of rules regarding how email data is stored, which is what compliance is all about.

Most email archiving solutions are designed around this very issue. They are structured to ensure the company remains compliant at all times, and doesn’t face the risk of financial penalties for not complying.

Oversight

While no company likes to advertise it, many like to monitor what their employees are doing. That can include monitoring email traffic to ensure productivity and prevent data leaks. Email archiving solutions are just one tool that enables this.

The ability for company security personnel to have access to current and historical email data is a great advantage when monitoring employees or maintaining oversight in transactions.

Disaster Recovery

While backups have an important role to play in a disaster recovery scenario, email archiving solutions can play a part too. If they are hosted offsite, and are accessible via a network, they allow employees to remain productive even while not in the office.

This enables the company to still have a professional public face, continue to do business and complete transactions, whatever is going on in the background.