Email archiving is a lot like air conditioning. No, it won't keep you cool on a warm day, but it does have one major thing in common with that great invention. At one point, air conditioning was a plaything of the rich, and wasn't thought of as accessible or necessary by common people. Now that is no longer the case.
Email archiving can no longer be thought of as a luxury, either. More businesses than ever are finding that email archiving is a fact of their life!
What's causing this newfound love of storing email? Regulation, of course. FINRA, SOX, HIPAA, FRCP, DPA, IDA. FOIA, MiFID, is just a partial list of regulation that applies to a growing number of businesses. Not only is regulation growing, but it is growing in complexity. One thing seems certain, though, and that's email needs to be archived in a specific format for many businesses. Failure to do so can result in huge fines and potential ruin. For that reason, smart businesses are making sure they do everything in their power to comply.
The FRCP alone is enough reason for just about every single organization going to consider archiving all their emails. If the organization is ever sued in a Federal Court, they may very well be expected to produce electronic mail. Failure to do so could result in them losing out. The only way to prepare for this type of eventuality is to begin storing your email now, before a serious situation arises. Email archiving is an essential type of insurance, especially in instances when a dispute between two parties arises.
Disputes are common for companies who sell online. E-commerce companies are well-served to archive email for this reason. Many credit card merchant companies these days will allow archived email to be entered in a dispute, which saves on traditional postage and helps give the company a leg up when something goes wrong with a customer.
Litigation can be an unpleasant event, but it usually is not a surprise. Email correspondence may end up playing a role in settling the dispute, so organizations benefit from storing them indefinitely.
Email archiving is also a necessary component of compliance programs. Data security and privacy policies demand that email is stored a certain way and is accessible in a specified manner. Organizations define these policies once and then can 'set it and forget it' when it comes to their email compliance.
Like air conditioning, email archiving once was thought of as something only other people need or can afford. Now, it's as needed as cool A/C on a blistering August day.
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