Email Compliance

Following a recent study released by Radicati that showed very strong growth prospects for the email compliance market for the next 4 years, it is worth considering the impact of the trend towards greater control over email communications. For small businesses I am sure the management of email is generally considered a lower priority than the constant day to day business challenges they face. Responsibility is often divulged to individuals to maintain good practice. Like Cobweb, many businesses will have policies in force, often buried in the company handbook and often do not give any guidance about which e-mails should be kept and for how long. But it cannot be presumed that employees realise the implications of deleting e-mails, or even which e-mails need to be retained, and this task should not be left in their hands. Total email management needs to be much more than a policy and, with the quantity and importance of emails in today’s busy business increasing all the time, automation has to be the key to a successful strategy. Incorporating spam and virus management, long term store, search and retrieve capabilities and if appropriate, content management, as well as robust written policies are all vital components to a comprehensive email compliance strategy and will ensure that when the worst happens you will be ready. Of course, the situation gets more serious if you are lucky enough to work in a regulated industry!

I am pleased to say that all of the technical components are already available in our business email solutions and many of our customers are already sleeping soundly knowing that they are doing all they can to minimise the business risk.  I would be interested to hear about the challenges in you business and how you have tried to address this tricky area.

Mark