Email archiving: total cost of ownership, or how much money can I save by archiving?
A company contemplating putting in a formal email archiving system is most likely very concerned about the costs of installing and maintaining such a system. However, if done right, email archiving should actually save any business a significant amount of money. That’s right, save money.
Immediate savings with email archiving
One way email archiving can reduce costs immediately is by freeing up storage space by using efficient de-duplication and storage features. Customers who have switched to our Razorsafe or Orca archiving systems report reductions in stored mail volume of 40 to 70%, primarily due to the efficient de-duplication routines. Freeing up storage space not only saves money immediately, it can improve the performance of the entire system, and thereby improve the productivity of the entire company.
Having all company information archived can improve productivity in other ways. An enormous amount of intellectual property is generated every year by most companies, and if employees can easily access well-archived older work they can often use it to improve or guide their current work rather than having to “reinvent the wheel” over and over again.
Another way archiving can immediately result in cost-savings is by reducing the workload of dedicated IT employees. For example, employees often prematurely delete emails and documents from their workstations, and need to retrieve such information. If a well-designed archive is available, employees can easily self-retrieve the necessary information without having to tie up the time of a dedicated IT employee.
And if all of the company’s existing data is archived appropriately, it is much easier to migrate the company’s email to newer, updated email servers. The company first migrates the archived data to a system that supports both the old and the new systems, and then the new system can easily be implemented without suffering any data loss or disruptions to workflow.
Reducing risks and liability
Most companies are required to archive email and other data by regulatory bodies. If your company hasn’t implemented an archiving solution that fully meets the requirements of various regulatory bodies, your company can be subjected to fines.
If the company is ever subjected to legal requests for data, having the data readily available in an archive will save money. Businesses are subjected to legal actions quite often, everything from legal actions over an employee’s dismissal to being sued over a product. Attempting to quickly produce the necessary documents and emails to prove lack of culpability without a well-designed archive in place will require immense effort on the part of multiple employees, and may not even be possible. And if the necessary information to settle or win a lawsuit cannot be produced in a timely fashion, the company may be subjected to punitive fines.
Bottom line, archiving shouldn’t be viewed as a cost of doing business, it should be viewed instead as an efficient way to perform a number of necessary business activities.
Free ROI Calculator to calculate the amount of money you can save by reducing the storage costs and stress on your servers, as well as instant access to enormous volumes of emails and electronic documents for eDiscovery regulations.
