Instant Message archiving, or IM archiving has been creeping into corporate consciousness for years. Ever since emails received so much attention, regulatory eyes have been focused upon companies recording every type of electronic communication for future scrutiny.
Instant Messaging is no exception, and now companies are all too slowly waking up to the productivity advantages of IM, it becomes something that needs addressing.
Data retention regulations in health care, financial services and other industries affect businesses no matter what their size. There are more detailed regulations, such as the SEC rules and Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which requires public companies to save copies of every e-mail they send for a fixed period of time.
For a small business, being able to produce e-mails or Instant Messages documenting how the company responded to a consumer or negotiated a business deal could save thousands of dollars in a lawsuit. That’s where IM archiving comes in.
To begin with, most companies simply banned the use of IM applications in the workplace. This was part in fear of potential leaks, and partly because they simply didn’t understand the technology, and had nothing in place to ensure compliance. Once IM archiving became commonplace, and products evolved to handle it, IM began being accepted again.
IM archiving now forms part of most, if not all compliance regulations. The regulators themselves were a little slow to awaken to the potential of IM to leak information and otherwise put companies in danger. However, they did wake up, and added advisory notes to the various rules to include Instant Messaging. They have now also addressed social media too, but that’s a topic for another time.
Any business who does business in America may as well regard the use of IM and social media in the workplace as they would emails. That means recording them, retaining them and allowing access when necessary.IM archiving is increasingly being used to satisfy e-discovery requests for IM conversations, so it pays to be ahead of the game.
Many email archiving solutions, either in-house or cloud-based, have an IM component to them to address the needs of IM archiving. The benefits of Instant Messaging in companies are too numerous and too compelling to not use.
The ability to communicate real-time with colleagues or clients without taking up all of their time is a valuable asset to any business. Further to that, the ability to conference in many users at once is very useful in group conversations or online meetings.
As long as an organization has an effective IM archiving solution, they should be fully compliant, and should encourage the use of Instant Messaging for work purposes. Anything that improves efficiency, productivity and doesn’t cost much to implement and manage is good news for beleaguered companies right now.
As with many “new” technologies, companies are initially afraid, then dubious as to its value, then grudgingly accepting. This should be no different. While the tools are available to manage, monitor and provide IM archiving, companies of all sizes should enjoy the benefits IM brings.
