Thursday, 28 February 2008

Industry Association Defines Best Practices for Managing Email

Email is arguably the single largest source of information creation for most organizations. Yet for the majority, email is managed poorly - if at all.

According to a recent AIIM Market IQ survey on Content Security, email has become the biggest content security concern for businesses.

In order to ensure that email is managed for regulatory compliance, operational efficiency, and strategic advantage, businesses and public-sector groups alike must take better control of their email policies, processes, and technologies.

Assuming budget is available; the top three primary obstacles to implement solutions are reported to be lack of understanding, complexity of solution, and user resistance.

Email plays a significant role in documenting decisions and conducting the business of an organization. Truly an enterprise-wide, mission-critical application that affects every user in an organization, it is critical that email be managed appropriately, so that stakeholders retain access to the information contained therein.

"The industry needs a better understanding of best practices for improving the control of corporate emails" says John Mancini, President of AIIM.

Knowledge workers have different perspectives on what email management means depending on their role - individual users want to be able to find their own messages, while records management and legal must ensure that messages can be produced across the organization in support of legal or regulatory requirements.

In a bid to address this concern, AIIM has recently invested in documenting best practices for email management. The Email Management (EMM) Certificate Program provides students with an understanding of industry best practices, and existing and emerging technologies for managing corporate emails.

Key areas covered in the program include:

• Email capture and retention
• Technologies for email management
• Email storage, archiving and backup
• Email classification
• Developing, implementing, and managing the email policy
• Governance

AIIM said it has scheduled several classes across North America, but also plans to introduce online courses early March.