With the rise in ransomware, phishing and other cyberattacks, email archiving has never been more critical. A secure archive is the most important repository of corporate memory, and key insight and knowledge lies within it. It’s also an essential component of an effective cyber resilience strategy.
With today’s threat landscape, it’s not enough for organisations to combat attacks, they also have to ensure continuity during an attack and fast recovery.
According to new research from Mimecast and Vanson Bourne, 87% of organisations with archiving in South Africa agree that they have at least one problem with their current solution. 68% cited administrative complexity, 61% slow search performance, 47% lack of scalability, and 36% unpredictable costs, as challenges. Yet, many businesses continue to use outdated archiving solutions. In fact, as many as 47% keep their information on premise rather than making use of a modern, cloud-based offering.
Why then, aren’t more businesses making the jump to modern archiving? The truth is that many don’t realise the potential benefits, so they unknowingly fall into the trap of settling for “acceptable” rather than adopting what they really need to overcome their underlying concerns.
Here are five common mistakes that are being made by South African businesses.
* Upgrading isn’t a priority – When last did you upgrade your archiving solution? If it was quite a while ago, don’t worry, you’re not alone — only 42% of South African businesses have upgraded theirs within the last year. This is a problem, as missing out on critical patches and bug fixes can lead to constrained performance and reduced efficiency overall.
* Search speeds are “good enough” – Speaking of efficiency, what are your search speeds looking like? Are they satisfactory? On average, during an archive search, 23% of South African businesses said completion time took 1 to 5 minutes, while 36% had to wait as long as 5 to 10 minutes to get their results.
* The importance of e-discovery is overlooked – The search speed statistics mentioned above don’t even take into account whether those businesses were able to find what they needed, on their first attempt. An inability to find the right information speedily has a direct effect on an organisation’s ability to quickly respond to queries. As it stands, only half of South African businesses are totally confident in their archive search and e-discovery capabilities.
* There’s no plan B in the event of downtime – Having email and archive access interrupted, no matter how temporary it may be, stifles an organisation’s efficiency and productivity. Nobody wants to deal with this scenario, but it’s a reality facing 45% of businesses in South Africa. These businesses have no failsafe in place in the event of system downtime, technical failure, or a cyberattack.
* Data is kept in a single location – Technical failure, human error, and cyberattacks are just a few examples of unpredictable events that can destroy data — and storing data in a single location is a problem for a large percentage of South African organisations. Only 41% are capable of recovering all their data in the event that it is lost.
With today’s technological developments, why rely on an old system? An email archive based in the cloud can provide faster search speeds, data recovery, mobility, long-term data preservation. A smart archive strategy can help drive employee productivity while ensuring enhanced email security and accessibility.
