Why Bother Archiving Your Email?

What’s the point of archiving company emails? After all, it takes up a significant amount of storage space that might be used for other, more important information. Maybe it’s because you’re forced to do so by some regulation, but there are other reasons that archiving your email is a good thing. Whatever the reason, you’ve made the right choice by archiving your email.

You might be surprised to learn that, according to Processor magazine, the global archiving market makes $4 billion a year, and is projected to increase to $7 billion by 2018. Email archiving is useful for more than just compliance, too. Businesses usually take advantage of email archiving for indexing, information retention, and more. If you aren’t already taking advantage of this service, you should consider it.

Redundant Storage of Mission-Critical Information
One of the biggest reasons that companies archive their email is to keep an index of files for later review or use. This could be for a number of reasons. Some messages might hold vital information that shouldn’t be seen by outside eyes. By keeping this data stored safely and securely within your email archives, not only is it out of the way, but it’s also stored where you can access it at your leisure. Of course, if the sole reason you’re archiving your email is because you don’t want prying eyes accessing it, you can always just delete the messages, but that defeats the purpose of accessing it later on.

Compliance Regulation is Necessary
Some businesses in particular industries, like finance and healthcare, are required by law to keep a certain backlog of emails archived in order to comply with certain regulations. However, these regulations aren’t unique to these industries, and there are so many rules and regulations out there that it’s probably in your best interest to integrate email archiving into your IT strategy anyway, just to dodge an unexpected bullet in the form of a lawsuit. For instance, if your company needs to go to court, it will be much easier to locate important emails if they are archived than it would be if they weren’t.

Email Archiving is Affordable
One of the most important advances in recent technology is cloud computing, and it makes storing and archiving information much easier (and affordable) than it was in the past. Cloud computing has changed the way that businesses access and store information, so why not apply the cloud to email archiving? As reported by Processor magazine:

[...] on-premises information archiving market is slowing in favor of cloud-based solutions. Nearly all vendors with an on-premises archiving solutions are adding cloud-based or hybrid solutions, either via their solution or through partnerships with managed service providers. Vendors without cloud solutions have one tabled for 2015, the research states.

The reasoning behind why cloud solutions are more affordable is thanks to limited hardware requirements placed on the end user, and the drop in price per gigabyte for cloud storage. Email archiving is valuable for every business, and Ferrum Technology Services knows how to equip your organization with the best cloud solution for your email-archiving needs. Give us a call at (847) 697-3282 to learn more.