With seemingly everyone having overflowing Outlook inboxes, “email management” can seem like an oxymoron—and the prospect of integrating email with your document management platform may seem like a fantasy.
Good news: email management is a reality, which is especially important considering that it’s become critically important to IT, operations and the C-suite—as well as to federal regulators who enforce Sarbanes-Oxley.
The Research
AIIM conducted a survey of 145 financial services professionals, with 57% of respondents in banking and finance and 43% in insurance.
Key findings of the study reiterate the importance of email management, which is clearly top-of-mind among IT, operations and legal executives at financial services companies:
- 74% of respondents spend at least 21% of their time on e-mail related activity
- 88% of respondents either have no email management in their organization or all corporate email is captured and archived for a predetermined time (e.g., 180 days)
- 98% deem deciding how long to keep email as “important” or “extremely important”
- 96% believe archiving (deciding how to store emails for the long-term) as “important” or “extremely important”
- 89% believe deciding how to keep email communications secure is an “important” or “extremely important”
- 81% believe capturing email threads as a record of customer interaction as “important” or “extremely important”
The Risk of Status Quo
Sarbanes Oxley and high-profile cases involving email records have made companies realize they must have an enterprise-wide solution for email management. All email cannot be treated the same and email archiving cannot be left to the individual employee.
The Solution
Fortunately there are email management solutions available that integrate tightly with Outlook, scale with business growth and do not reside on sensitive email servers—such as Email Manager from CMA.
Whether your organization requires enhanced workflow or is considering email management as part of the enterprise records management strategy, consider Email Manager as an email management solution that will meet the compliance and productivity needs of the firm. This seemingly insurmountable initiative is simpler than you might expect.