Could you be breaking the Law? Yes – if you are not archiving your business emails.

It is 2011, and most of our business communications and negotiations are now performed via email. Your vendor’s purchase orders, invoices, agreements, employee communications are mostly handled via email. International clients and vendors prefer online communication to phone and traditional mail.

Are you a victim of a Recycle Bin Syndrome?

We’ve all been there. The minute you permanently delete an email, it turns out you needed it after all!  Did you ever find yourself “recycle bin” diving to dig out old emails, or perhaps you still print out copies of some email communication, thinking it is sufficient backup in case of “he said, she said”… right? Wrong! Every business is required by law to archive emails. Some industries have strict federal guidelines on storing email communications (financial institutions, for example). But what you may not realize is that your business – like any other must comply with the Federal Regulations on Civil Procedures (also known as FCRP).

What is FRCP?

The amendments to the FRCP that went into effect on December 1, 2006, mandate that companies must be prepared for electronic discovery.  Any organization or business must know where their data is, how to retrieve it and how to meet data requests; in addition it must determine what data will not be subject to search.

How do FCRP requirements affect your business?

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure apply to any organization that has the potential to be involved in litigation in the U.S. Federal Court system. That makes you impacted by these requirements.  If your business is ever involved in litigation, you will be grateful for the day you’ve implemented email archiving solution. Organizations and businesses that do not have an automated backup system in place to help them effectively store, search and retrieve email data in real-time may end up paying thousands of dollars or face paying high costs for  data discovery procedures. In some instances, failure to produce the requested data in a timely fashion may even lead to a loss of lawsuit.  Simply put, if you do not know where your data is, nor how to retrieve, you can end up losing time, money and, possibly even your business.

Does Data Backup count?

You will be surprised: NO, it does not. In addition to backup, you would need an email archiving procedure. Email archiving is not the same process as email backup.  Backups alone only enable you to restore your email server to the last “copy” of it in the event of a disaster.  On another hand, an archiving process allows your email data to be indexed and searchable. That means you can find email messages based upon certain criteria, such as sender address, subject or a date, or presence of attachments, etc. And that is why archiving is an important part of being compliant with FRCP regulations. In addition to being covered from the legal standpoint, archiving email is simply a smart thing to do: you never know how certain emails and history of communication exchange may play a role in the future.

So, let’s recap: WHY ARCHIVE BUSINESS EMAILS?

  1. Be RFCP compliant: you will save time, money and grief if your company is ever involved in a lawsuit.
  2. Make life easier:  archiving email makes searching your inbox faster and easier,
  3. Prevent your inbox from being overstuffed with email and bypass inbox size limitations.

So, you want to start archiving your emails?

To overview or setup and email archiving solution for your business, give us a call at (201) 4931414.

How is your state of IT? Call Us: (855) 551-7760 with any questions.