Johannesburg, 25 Oct 2005
Of all the communication methods available in the modern era, e-mail is probably the most widely-used medium of communication in the business sphere. E-mail has become so much a part of our lives that we can`t imagine a world without it.
Organisations depend on e-mail for most business-related operations on a daily basis with employees spending between 25% and 70% of their time on e-mail or related attachments (according to an international study by AIIM - the Association for Information and Image Management). This means that a large amount of corporate information is stored on a mail server, which puts the organisation at risk of litigation. Mail servers were not developed to effectively manage large amounts of content on the mail server.
Global corporate scandals such as those of Enron and WorldCom, the biggest of our time, have compelled governments to take a closer look at the way organisations manage content. A number of international Acts (Sarbanes-Oxley, Patriot Act, etc) have been put in place to provide organisations with set rules as to how content should be managed. The management of e-mail forms part of these Acts.
In South Africa there are also a number of local Acts and guidelines with which companies need to be compliant. These include the Electronic Communications and Transactions (ECT) Act, the National Archives (NARS) Act, the Promotion of Access to Information (PAIA) and Promotion of Administration Justice (PAJA) Acts and finally the King II report.
With an estimated 9.2 trillion e-mails to be sent in 2005 (according to IDC), all organisations are at risk of litigation if correct procedures have not been followed according to law. The result could be heavily-imposed fines, as seen in the Morgan Stanley case in America, which cost the investment bank $1.45 billion simply because it could not produce certain e-mails when required to do so by a judge. Aside from financial penalties incurred, there could even be possible jail-time for executives.
"We have found that 60% - 70% of large organisations in South Africa have no e-mail protection policy in place," observes Daniel Hall, CEO of IA Systems.
"Organisations have identified the problem but because of the immaturity of e-mail management there is a paucity of documentation available to define the most effective way to manage e-mail overload."
Globally, organisations have looked at document management solutions to provide the solution for all the headaches provided by the e-mail problem. Document management solutions have been developed to manage a large amount of content within one repository.
Utilising a document management solution, e-mails can be stored centrally, secured and fully indexed to allow searching for e-mails within the repository. Document management solutions provide not only full history information on content but also retention schedules that can be set up to ensure that e-mail will be kept and disposed of according to legislation.
Progressive organisations, therefore, need to think beyond finding storage systems for e-mail and ensure that e-mails are retrievable when the need arises.
"Companies that take this approach have realised that e-mail is an integral part of broader enterprise content management strategies, which is why they are treating e-mail as a critical element of business content," continues Hall.
To take this approach, companies need to look at upgrading their document management systems to include managing e-mail. Solutions from vendors automatically check all incoming and outgoing e-mail against a set of rules pre-defined by the company, which govern and index the e-mail accordingly.
Hall says the benefit of this is that all e-mail becomes easily searchable. Companies can then turn this to competitive advantage.
"A well-managed e-mail environment not only allows for the storage and retrieval of e-mails, but true interaction can be made available through the e-mail management system. This provides employees with team collaboration tools, instant messaging and, most importantly, knowledge management functionality," concludes Hall.
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