Managing Email
From Compulsory to Competitive Advantage
The popular business drivers for email management have centered on the "you gotta, you'd better, or else" justification. If the volume of email isn't a compelling enough reason to focus on the problem, the compliance age ushered in with the new century, combined with the fear factor of litigation and e-discovery costs, are compelling organizations to seek solutions sooner rather than later in order to mitigate risk and meet growing global compliance mandates.
While the fear factor and governance guidelines are gaining the lion's share of the attention, an equally valuable justification is the ability to integrate an email management strategy with an overall business solution framework in order to control costs and generate competitive advantage. The March 2005 AIIM/Kahn Consulting Industry Watch Study on Electronic Communication Policies and Procedures cited 39% of survey respondents indicating compliance as a decision driver for email management, while improving efficiency was ranked higher at 45%. Embracing a holistic approach to the email challenge isn't just good business; it's often, in fact, simply business in most industry sectors:
Government agencies. Freedom of information, paperwork reduction and privacy acts; court e-filing mandates and e-government initiatives; early adoption of electronic records and enterprise architecture strategies...all are driving government agencies to better manage correspondence with other agencies, contractors and citizens. While paper is still the dominant form of incoming correspondence, email is emerging as the standard medium for incoming and outgoing government communications. Differing local, state and federal guidelines require departments to map dynamic processes to capture incoming correspondence and deliver accurate responses. Being able to respond quickly and appropriately to email communications not only meets deadline obligations, but also streamlines efficiencies and improves constituent service and contract relations.
Commercial businesses. Beyond being part of compliance measures, such as Sarbanes-Oxley by publicly held companies, email management solutions significantly impact claims processing, customer service and complaints handling, and the management of myriad contracts held by commercial organizations of all sizes. Online forms and Web site inquiries arrive in email boxes as leads and revenue waiting to happen. Or not happen, as delayed responses can result in consumer business going elsewhere. Corporate legal departments in particular have diverse email management requirements, from collaborating with outside counsel to managing contracts; from helping to establish email policy to leading e-discovery research against internal email and content repositories.
Moving from paper-based, personnelintensive communication processes to electronic, automated and workflow-enabled solutions results in dramatic cost savings. Faster customer responses in higher volume with consistent quality by fewer personnel: if not implemented on an enterprise basis as part of an overall corporate information management strategy, word of such success in one department quickly spreads to efficiencies in others, where profitability and competitive advantage can be realized.
Financial services. Perhaps the most scrutinized industry in terms of compliance, litigation and e-discovery, financial services organizations face some of the strongest regulations and seek methods to reduce operating costs and improve margins. Compliance requirements and business process efficiency go hand in hand, as financial services firms wish to avoid court sanctions, litigation settlements and negative press resulting in a loss of client confidence and revenue. Email usage is threaded throughout critical firm processes, including contract management, deal management, mergers and acquisitions, antimoney laundering and insurance claims processing. Email can be a critical element in a business process geared for customer retention and providing innovative and personalized products to customers.
Compliance mandates are in lockstep with these processes, with SEC 17a-4 electronic communication storage requirements, privacy acts and court guidelines for discovery responses affecting daily business operations. To improve efficiencies, cut costs and achieve compliance, firms seek email and process-centric content solutions that enable seamless content sharing, reduce paperwork and enable firm staff to better know the customer and generate revenue.
Legal and professional services. Email is pervasively the client communication standard for law firms and professional services firms, often in conjunction with collaborative extranets housing consolidated billing and matter status information. Email is frequently the de facto workflow vehicle for document revision, with versions sent for review to progress contracts, briefs, agreements and the like to a state of acceptance and completion. In addition to the inherent confusion that can ensue with lax content process control, firms must operate in compliance with a variety of guidelines that address new business intake, from government mandates (USA PATRIOT Act, UK Financial Services and Markets Act, EU Privacy Laws, U.S. Safe Harbor) to due diligence in conflict of interest research.
Email participates and facilitates across these processes, but firms must also adhere to the governance measures applicable to their client base, running the compliance gauntlet across all industry sectors as well as the varying court docketing systems. Firms seek practical email methods that enable attorneys and support staff to focus on matter-centric tasks, while proactive compliance tools centralize and automate governance processes to manage email communications and work product throughout the matter lifecycle.
Across Industries: Contract Management and Email
The U.S. National Association of Purchasing Managers reports that the average Fortune 1000 company has between 20,000 and 40,000 active contracts containing clauses, terms, conditions, commitments and milestones that need to be negotiated, tracked and managed over the contract's life to maximize business benefits and minimize associated costs or risks. A contract management solution incorporates email management to:
- speed negotiation of contract elements before agreement and sign off;
- facilitate notifications during the review and approval process; and
- proactively send reminders of milestones (including upcoming expiry) during the active agreement phase of the contract so as to not miss renegotiation opportunities.
Ultimately, email helps an organization be proactive in the management of its contracts with a more contextualized understanding of the risks and obligations of each contract.
In the convergence of compliance requirements with business process and value, email management solutions also require collaboration between technology elements and professionals that may often seem to compete rather than cooperate. Enterprise content management and email archiving are both required to marry the requisite business process and records management capabilities (ECM) with the needed storage networking and information lifecycle management elements (email archiving). Records and information management (RIM) and IT professionals must therefore work cohesively alongside security, legal and business unit stakeholders to ensure a complete plan of attack to meet risk measures and achieve efficiencies.
Across industry sectors, effective email management relies on understanding the base nature of email being the standard correspondence medium as well as a source of knowledge and record for the enterprise. Implementing an integrated, automated email management strategy makes it possible for common issues and questions to be routinely dealt with by leveraging existing research across line of business applications and corporate repositories to create responses. Email containing personal or commercially sensitive information can be secured to avoid unauthorized access. Finalized and significant responses and research can be declared as records. And comprehensive reporting enables business managers and executives to be alerted to process status and perform trend analysis to understand bottlenecks and develop efficiencies in communication processes more quickly.
Additional Hummingbird staff contributing to this article are Cheryl McKinnon, director, industry solutions; Steve Chunn, solution manager, contract management; and Ralph Severini, industry manager, financial services.
Hummingbird Ltd. is a leading global provider of enterprise content management (ECM) solutions, enabling organizations to manage the lifecycle of enterprise content from creation to disposition. Hummingbird Enterprise™ solutions enable organizations to address critical business needs, such as information management, business continuity, compliance and risk mitigation. Please visit www.hummingbird.com.