The corporate records conundrum: capturing e-mail in corporate records requires the right approach to technology, but solving the problem sets the stage for future challenges.

• Author: Caughell, Tracy
• Position: Business Matters

At the Core

This article

* discusses ways organizations can effectively manage e-mail

* explains the records management challenges presented by e-mail

* explains how organizations can integrate e-mail with their records management program

Everyone loves the convenience of e-mail, but e-mail is striking fear into the hearts of many in the world of records management. It is ironic that a technology so effective and easy-to-use could induce such concern. But the fact is, it has become a monster that many are not quite sure how to tame.

E-mail offers a wonderfully easy way to communicate--tap out a quick note, attach a few documents, if needed, hit "send," and away it goes. No telephone tag or garbled cellular calls. E-mail has taken the world by storm, from companies to governments to individuals; it has been embraced as a means of both business communication and casual conversation. And therein lies the downside: e-mail's volume and pervasive use, its mix of business and casual communication, and its dual status as a document and a conversation introduces tremendous risks for organizations. Information contained in an e-mail can haunt an organization for years and provide damning evidence that may result in expensive fines and settlements. Companies from Wall Street's biggest brokerage houses to Microsoft have learned that lesson recently.

The concern over more effective management of e-mail is not new. It is an issue that many organizations have known needs to be addressed in time. But the sudden fall of Enron triggered a chain of corporate scandals that reverberated through the business world and suddenly brought the issue of e-mail to the forefront for records managers. Tough new government regulations, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, have been passed in response to this seemingly endless stream of accounting and corporate scandals. While these regulations do not address e-mail management directly, they have certainly put the focus on better recordkeeping and accountability. As a result, these laws are fueling a tremendous sense of urgency in many organizations to reduce the risks of e-mail and manage it more effectively as corporate records.

As organizations wrestle with e-mail, other technologies used to communicate--some mature and some just beginning to evolve into new uses--will present similar challenges. The tough new regulatory environment businesses are operating in today has implications for these technologies. Suddenly, the e-mail monster has a few cousins: voicemail and multimedia technology. These technologies have the same risks as e-mail and as they become more integrated with other systems in the enterprise, the pressure will grow to capture this important content for records management. Thus, businesses need a technology solution that allows them...