Originally posted on 23 Dec 2013
Kevin Salter wrote in IT Counts earlier this month and asked: “What will we see as the ‘next big area’ in IT for accountants…?”
He says that it is easy now to look back and see some of the ‘big areas’ that have been brought to the attention of firms in recent years. Many firms can probably now tick off all (or at least most of the following big areas) that spring readily to mind:
· Multiple monitors
· Online accounting
· Document management
· Moving to the Cloud
· Social Media
What is likely to be the next ‘big area’? Kevin sticks his neck out and suggest that there will be an increasing focus on email security and in particular the importance of email archiving, which is something he has introduced into his own practice.
For instance, it is incumbent on any organisation providing financial services advice via email to securely retain all email traffic – in and out – for at least 6 years. However this is good practice for any business – after all you retain copies of other correspondence in and out. An Email archive provides a complete solution to the email storage and retrieval needs which will ensure that you can meet the requirements of a growing number of regulations on email compliance, eDiscovery and other legislation.
Users may keep emails in their email system but there are potential issues – deletion – once deleted and the deleted items emptied the email is gone forever. Email archiving eliminates the need to use mailbox quotas as a way to limit the use of a mail servers’ storage capacity. Users are no longer forced to go through the time consuming process of constantly deleting ‘less important’ emails or storing them externally.
Emails are an important and very extensive knowledge resource. Email Archive enables all users to access their emails easily and extremely fast, increasing productivity within the company.
To protect valuable email information, standards have been set and government regulations enacted that require retention periods and timely response to legal and information queries. If you were asked to provide all email correspondence to/from a client in connection with a court case how time consuming would this be and could you actually do it….?
Do you agree with Kevin? If not, what do you think the next ‘big area’ will be? Let me know.
Although not directly focussing on email security, I blogged on big data systems and cybersecurity earlier this month. See my blog post here.
He has written over 700 business publications (see Glossaries at http://onesmartplace.com/resources/glossaries/) and is editor of Better Business Focus (see http://onesmartplace.com/resources/better-business-focus-magazine). His Blog, on a wide range of subjects can be found at: http://onesmartplace.com/blog/
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