Drastic changes in the way companies communicate force IT decision makers to act future-oriented. Especially younger people set high standards for their employer’s corporate communication.
These drastic changes become apparent when remembering corporate communication 10 or more years ago. Business emails were – besides the classical business letter – the most innovative medium for communication. Letters and emails still have their right to exist, but get replaced more and more by real-time communication mediums like social networks. This development gets intensified by the growing use of smartphones within the company and the resulting increased mobility of employees. They enable the employees to stay in contact with colleagues and customers at any time and wherever they are. Also Enterprise Social Networks like LinkedIn, Xing or Yammer are used as an alternative to the classical business email. Especially younger employees enjoy the easy, uncomplicated and direct way of communicating with colleagues and customers. Companies can also benefit from this development through increased productivity – but IT decision makers have to admit that the modern kind of corporate communication makes them lose control in a way.
Communication happens outside the corporate IT
Back in the time when most of the electronic business communication was processed by email, companies were well advised with a backup or simple email archiving solution. All email communication was stored and retrievable on demand. No matter whether it was done for compliance reasons or industry-specific requirements. Nowadays this process becomes more and more difficult because internal and external communication interactions happen outside the own corporate IT. Operationally used smartphones and mobile messaging contribute to the complicated situation. But how should IT decision makers react?
Shadow IT because of a communication ban?
Obviously the easiest way would be to prohibit the use of external services for corporate communication. This way all communication stays within the company and its supervision. But is such a drastic ban a proper step in today’s business world? Most probably this decision would displease a lot of employees – especially the younger ones. The “Digital Natives” are used to modern communication mediums from their private life and require these also for their business environment. It is likely that a ban would cause a shadow IT that companies most certainly do not want. But is there an alternative that lets IT decision makers sleep peacefully while making employees more productive instead of upsetting them?
Archiving 2.0 includes it all
Companies need a solution that on the one side allows the use of modern communication mediums but at the same time capture it properly. For business emails a pure email archiving solution was used – and sufficient. Today this approach would ignore the use of other modern mediums. An archiving solution that includes mobile communication, social media, and instant messaging is the remedy. IT decision makers who go for such an Archiving 2.0 solution meet requirements for more control and proof their future-oriented proceeding by fulfilling the demands of today’s employees.
Retain is the solution for future-oriented IT decision makers – Are you one of them?
