For many years companies have tried to avoid the need to invest in an email archive solution, but as more and more information is transferred by email (often nearly 75% of your information), it is very difficult to ignore the importance and value of an appropriate solution.
Why should we archive our email, I hear you ask? Well, there are three key areas of your business that typically have an interest. The first is your legal or HR department, as email can be used and submitted in tribunals and legal instances. It is also often the fastest and best way to prove a case and may be the only way certain information was communicated. Just as importantly, your IT manager will be tasked with making your data readily and efficiently accessible. Problematic storage devices, corrupt PST files and overloaded email servers are just some of the headaches which they must overcome. The final person is your Operations Manager, as they will want staff to access historic information to improve the performance and productivity of their teams.
Each of the above stakeholders will have quite different requirements, many of which will probably start to make you head spin. My advice would be to step away from the products for a moment and address these requirements from a business perspective first. Once you have a clear picture, you can then start to objectively review the technology. It could be that you need an online service such as that provided by Message Labs or a local installed product as provided by Symantec. It might even be that you already have a solution by using functionality in products such as Microsoft Exchange 2010.
Whichever solution you choose and deploy, you will almost certainly feel like you have just spent money on something that has absolutely no visible benefit to your business. However, like every good and well-chosen insurance policy, you will be delighted the day you need to use it.
It’s a fact that the majority of companies that invest in email archiving solutions do so because they have already experienced some pain that that could so easily have been avoided.