| There’s a huge problem lurking in almost every business email storage system that can go undetected for months, or even years, until you need to find something.
Most people have the terrible habit of just hitting reply when they respond to an email. That works fine as long as the topic is static, but that’s rarely the case for longer than two or three email exchanges.
For example, an email titled “Preliminary Budget Deadlines” in the subject line might end up being about all kinds of things in no time at all. You may have many emails floating around still titled “Preliminary Budget Deadlines,” which should have been retitled as subjects changed, such as “Health Insurance Quotes for Next Year” or “How We Could Save $25,000.” The confusion magnifies as more staff members get involved, and of course have no idea which of the dozens, or hundreds of emails with the original title might have specific information or bids you need. It could be even worse – some people use just “Please Review” in the subject line.
While there are a number of reasons this might be important to your business, the most obvious is your annual audit. Auditors are not amused by photos of Jim’s first child’s birthday party, and you won’t be happy about the downtime your staff is likely to spend finding information auditors request, or the higher audit bill that will follow. And heaven forbid the ominous word “Compliance” with a capital C rears its ugly head. You will instantly find that you are highly motivated to put effective email management and email archives in place.
You can be proactive and avoid this kind of mayhem with effective email retention, email management and email archiving starting now. A professional email archiving system will do several great things:
• Ensure you have 100% email storage and email management. A crucial message existing only in one or two employees’ sent or received emails can be a nightmare to find, or, even worse, lost because they periodically clear old emails, store them in ways that may be a mystery to others if they happen to be on holiday or have left, or delete them upon their departure.
• An effective email archiving system saves every email, incoming and outgoing, internal and external. Essential information will never be lost.
• An effective email archive system allows you to search even a large database of emails in minutes.
• An excellent email archiving system will do more, such as search inside attachments without a searcher needing to open them, and eliminate duplicates so you don’t open 20 files “just in case” they contain additional info.
• Effective email storage also saves time daily – searches are so quick that individual employees don’t need to set up complex sets of folders to keep track of information in emails. It also eliminates the need for some central employee to conceive and establish an email folder system and then try to train, persuade or cajole all employees to actually use it. Add the need for system updates, and the email storage headaches compound.
So, email archiving can help your business be significantly more productive, and save you serious money at the same time. A notable amount of money at the same time.
You should know about Avanti eMail Archive (link to: http://www.mail-archive.com.au/index.php) which offers Mail Archiva -an excellent and affordable email archiving solution - in Australia. You’ll like the high levels of security and other features Avanti provides, too. |