Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn & Co as an alternative to email?
Major changes in the form of corporate communication require future-oriented actions. Younger employees especially have high expectations and needs regarding the communication of their employers.
The way we communicate within a company has changed completely. This change becomes obvious when you think about how things used to be 10 years ago. Electronic email was by far the most innovative medium of communication.
Of course, email and classic letters still have a reason for existence but are increasingly replaced by modern real time communication media; social media platforms and enterprise social networks like LinkedIn, Xing and Yammer.
The use of smartphones in companies and thus the increasing mobility of employees only enhance this development further. Younger employees enjoy these less complicated and direct methods of communication and are able to stay in contact with colleagues, customers or business partners any place at any time.
Companies profit from the trend as productivity grows, but at the same time using these modern ways of corporate communication may result in IT managers losing some control.
Communication beyond corporate IT
In the time when most electronic corporate communication was made via email, companies did just fine with a simple backup solution or mere email archiving. All email communication was secured and was retrievable by request. No matter whether the data was archived because of compliance or other specific requirements.
Nowadays, this matter is way more complicated, as internal and external communication occur beyond corporate IT. Privately owned smartphones used for business matters and mobile messaging only make it worse. But how should IT managers react?
Shadow IT through communication ban
Arguably the easiest solution is a complete ban on external services for business communication. This way communication can be monitored completely by the company’s IT department.
However, is this a modern solution? The ban would probably upset many employees – especially the younger ones. These digital natives are used to modern communication media from their personal surroundings.
A ban would probably lead to the development of shadow IT which is something that companies clearly do not want. But what does the alternative look like, which satisfies both IT managers and makes employees more productive instead of upsetting them.
Archiving 2.0 has got it all
Companies need a solution that allows the use of modern communication media but monitors its use in detail at the same time. Companies nowadays need an archiving solution which does not only archive email but also mobile communications, social media and instant messaging services – Archiving 2.0.
IT managers who decide to deploy such an archiving solution cover the need for increased control in modern IT environments and demonstrate future-oriented working.
One of these Archiving 2.0 solutions is Retain. Retain provides unified archiving of all business communication, including email, Skype for Business, social media, and mobile communication data for case assessment, search, and eDiscovery. It can be deployed on-premise or in the cloud.
This article was first published in OHM Issue 38 (2017/3), p24.