Contributed Article.  Author: Connie West, Senior Product Advisor at Quest Software (now a part of Dell)

 

Think about all the content that’s locked in your email, and then multiply that by the number of employees in your organization. That’s a LOT of content! Michael Osterman notes in “The Importance of Email Continuity,” that “email is not solely about communications – just as important as access to email for communications is its role as a repository of critical business information.”

Is it a repository of critical business information? You bet it is. Think about everything that happens in email: deals are negotiated, corporate decisions are discussed, ideas are vetted, and support cases are discussed and closed. I could go on, but you get the picture. It’s an ever-growing repository of corporate intelligence.

No doubt about it, we’ve spent a LOT of time managing email over the years ─ reporting on its use, speeding the delivery of messages, archiving it according to records retention schedules we have meticulously created, moving it to offline storage devices, and restoring it when it is accidently deleted. Exchange Admins are regularly tasked with determining things like appropriate usage, compliance with corporate messaging policies, and investigating questionable communications. In addition, on a regular basis, they spend time sifting through email stores to aggregate data for ad hoc management requests. 
 

It’s interesting that organizations at higher levels are just starting to think about examining the Exchange data store to shape their planning and improve their decision-making.  What does that mean for Exchange Admins? Well, it could mean that there will be greater pressure to respond to those ad hoc management requests more quickly, and the volume of requests will increase.  And, IT managers will feel the pressure too – they’re being asked to align IT with the business, which means demanding more answers derived from the Exchange store.
 

What would help? How do Exchange admins respond more quickly to those ad hoc requests for information, answers that can ONLY be found in email? How can they mine the data trapped in messaging servers to improve the business, while balancing the need to be operationally efficient? Is there a way that the line-of-business managers can get the answers they need with little or no IT involvement?  Hey, maybe that’s the real key to making this work – equipping the business managers with an easy-to-use solution that they can employ to meet their business objectives, while reducing the burden on IT admins – a real win-win situation.

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About the Author

Connie West is a Senior Product Advisor at Quest Software (now a part of Dell). She has a 25 year history in the software industry, focusing on knowledge management, collaboration, and unified communications. The portfolio of products she currently specializes in includes archiving, regulatory compliance, e-discovery and recovery, and unified communications analysis and reporting.   She holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the Ohio State University and is a co-inventor of the Systems and Methods for Collaboration patent issued in 2010.