Email platforms are and have been for quite some time, among the main communication arteries of modern businesses. We live in an age of information where fast and secure data-flows are an integral part of a company’s workflow. As emails carry critical and often sensitive data that can make or break the success of an organization, they need to be streamlined, secured, and properly archived for subsequent retrieval and re-use.
To put these claims in perspective and back them up, nearly 320 billion emails are expected to be sent and received in 2021 alone, while this number should be bumped up to 361 by 2024, according to Statista. Additionally, one recent Osterman Research reports that around 75% of intellectual property owned by an organization is being stored and archived across its communication channels, a huge part of which circulates through email platforms.
This type of sensitive environment has prompted a vast majority of businesses to invest more in cyber security systems and email archiving solutions in order to prevent disaster scenarios in which their company secrets and sensitive data is either lost or stolen. These solutions are typically SaaS-based platforms that make sure all your emails are being stored and archived in a safe and budget-friendly manner.
Email Archiving Solutions are Industry-Agnostic
It is a common misconception that email archiving should only be deployed by the businesses operating in highly regulated industries. The truth is that the modern business landscape has brought about certain changes in these trends, prompting many other organizations to deploy these systems as an important component of their data governance framework and overall security.
It is now widely known that integrated email archiving solutions enable business entities to automate their data and email storing systems, as well as help them adhere to the often confusing and convoluted regulations, rules, and legislations that permeate their industry.
Especially now as the regulatory ecosystem is becoming wider and wider by the year. The EU General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR, for instance, caused quite a stir and racket a couple of years ago when many organizations across Europe were caught off guard and their workflow was therefore impacted quite a bit.
Benefits of Deploying Email Archiving
Aside from mitigating potential legal issues that could arise from unretrievable data and emails, as well as adhering to complicated rules and regulations, email archiving brings about the following benefits:
Reduced Cost of Email Management
These solutions assist you in reducing overheads closely related to email and data management tasks. The companies that utilize on-premise servers for storing data and emails, even those with hosted email platforms, can face scalability issues in terms of mailbox size and quota management. Not only does professional email archiving enable custom-friendly pricing plans and self-service models for Governance, Risk Management and Compliance teams, it provides numerous benefits for every end-user involved in the communication mechanism.
IT help-desks representatives’ and admins’ workloads no longer need to include user support, which enables them to devote their time and skills to more critical issues, enabling all end-users in this equation to be more productive in their main tasks.
Data Loss Prevention and Improved Accessibility/Retrieval
These systems offer a highly-functional interface that makes data and email messages access and retrieval extremely easy. They also decrease the chances of data loss induced by human error, which can be of utmost importance when you need to access and retrieve critical information along with its metadata, creating an environment where you can easily filter through and locate pertinent data when necessary.
Improved Productivity and Streamlined Workflow
Analyzing important projects and related data is much easier for companies that deploy email archiving. You can easily access project details and gain valuable insight into analytics-based information that can be quite helpful when you want to revise and review older strategies and tweak current workflow.
This also improves productivity levels and speeds up communication among both your teammates and your clients, making the most out of the communication channels that permeate your projects.
Litigation Discovery Support
As we already mentioned, email archiving platforms also help you prevent potential legal issues should your organization get involved in potentially cost-hefty legal proceedings by making sure you have a proper litigation discovery in place. These systems provide you with the necessary infrastructure, data protection and necessary support in terms of litigation-induced data discovery involving information retrieval upon request. The plans are often scalable when it comes to data storage so you pay next to nothing for storing less sensitive data that doesn’t need to be accessed too often.
Summary
Regardless of the industry, niche, or the sizes of your business, certain arduous tasks and data maintenance-related projects and processes are an inevitable part of running a company. These operations take time, resources and far too often hijack a good chunk of your workload, especially if performed manually. Opting for the right integrated email security and archiving solution will save you precious time and resources, boost productivity, optimize unnecessary costs, and – most importantly – keep your company safe from harm in terms of litigation-based scenarios that often prove to be extremely costly, in terms of both resources and reputation.
Also published on Medium.
