Why Bother with Archiving

Many organizations realize and acknowledge that legal regulations for dealing with business-relevant e-mail communication, documents, and files exist. When it comes to implementing these regulations however, many small and medium-size businesses don't move forward and decide to wait. A common thought for such businesses is that it is not really necessary to implement legally compliant archiving, or that a traditional backup of important data, which more often than not does not comply with legal requirements, is good enough.

Companies that choose to ignore the legally mandated retention periods and archiving are often not aware the consequences of doing so. Not only can there be complications with fiscal law (e.g. when a company audit performed), but consequences can scale to criminal persecution due to neglecting proper bookkeeping. There can also be strong economic inconveniences for organizations that decide archiving is unnecessary. Lack of compliant archiving is, for example, a negative indicator for banks that evaluate companies according to Basel II criteria.

Legal issues and inconveniences aside, strong economic benefits often speak for the implementation of a professional archiving solution.

Required information can easily be found in the archive, and can be restored with the push of a button. Long and extremely inconvenient searches inside mailboxes, unmaintainable backup files, and the need to navigate chaotic folder structures instantly become a thing of the past. Systematic digital archiving helps optimize business processes, and ensures that all company-internal information and business-processes is properly documented.

Moreover, the immediate backups made by an archiving solution effectively provide a second layer of protection against data loss caused by system crashes, equipment failure, or human errors. Consider what would happen to your organization if that important, mission-critical e-mail message or document suddenly got lost. More often than not, such a disaster causes damages that end up costing a lot more than an archiving solution.