Protecting your critical business email (Part 1 of 2)15 February 2006
There is no question that email is now a critical business tool. Initially conceived as a mechanism for simple or rapid communication, email is now used to manage sales, support customers, record business decisions, administer HR and finance functions, and exchange critical documents or contracts. Protecting, preserving and controlling this asset should be a top priority for any business.
For most companies, 'email' refers to a suite of applications, including messaging, business and personal contact management, diaries and calendars, task lists and shared company documents. All of these elements represent critical corporate data that needs to be protected. According to IDC, 60% of corporate data resides unprotected on PC desktops and laptops. When you consider that up to 20% of laptops suffer hardware failure in the first 3 years of use (Gartner) and 6% of all PCs will suffer an episode of data loss in any given year (Pepperdine University Study), the significance of protecting email at the corporate level grows substantially.
If you are using a basic or free email solution for your company make sure you know when and how your critical business email is backed up. Most free email offerings are backed up only weekly and are configured to use Post Office Protocol, or POP. Typically, email that is using a 'POP' connection is pulled down from the server to the end user's PC or laptop when it is received. That means that your critical business data - email, contacts, diary entries, tasks, files - is lost if that end user's PC or laptop suffers a data loss, because it doesn't stay on the server to benefit from the weekly backup.
Data loss is only part of the risk to the corporate e-mail asset. As more business functions and critical data transition to email, simple downtime of the email system becomes more and more costly. When customers cannot reach you for support, potential sales prospects don't receive a critical proposal or orders aren't submitted to vendors, the result is lost productivity, lost revenue or worse. Email downtime is increasingly correlated with a significant and measurable impact on the bottom line.
Look out for tomorrow's feature when we offer practical tips for protecting your critical business email and why you should consider upgrading to a business class email solution such as BT Business Email Plus
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