Before Jeremy

Meet Jeremy. Jeremy is the IT Director for a major hospital organization. While it may look like Jeremy is calm, cool, and collected with his thermos of coffee sitting in his office surrounded by a graveyard of computer equipment, he isn’t. Jeremy knows what today has in store for him and he hasn’t even opened his laptop in fear that his email inbox would literally overflow from his computer, dousing his keyboard and mouse with a stream of “circling backs” and “just checking ins.”

Jeremy is tasked with reducing the strain his IT department is feeling while still filling the needs of the organization. Essentially, his goal is to educate employees on how to avoid risk and empower them to rely less on IT. It’s an interesting predicament Jeremy finds himself in, needing more IT resources so the company needs less IT involvement. Trust him, it doesn’t make sense to him either.

There are many concerns an IT Director might have, from staying within the IT budget to locating lost emails. Jeremy jotted some of his down last night to give you a picture of what he worries about:

• Not enough resources. Jeremy’s team runs LEAN. What IT department doesn’t? He is looking for ways to free up his IT team since they are constantly bombarded with requests for complete case assessments, eDiscovery, and data exports. If only he could empower the organization’s employees to know how to do that themselves so his team could focus on other tasks.
• Not enough money. Jeremy is finding their current data storage needs is contributing to a reduced life cycle of their existing hardware since it takes so many servers. He needs to find a way to reduce their increasing hardware and maintenance costs.
• Too many PST files. With so many employees sending so many emails, (remember Jeremy’s inbox?) they need to find a way to consolidate their growing PST file collection. This consolidation is weighing heavily on Jeremy’s mind since he knows having all their PST files in one searchable location would eliminate the need for PST file creation altogether.
• Too much data. Jeremy’s organization manages an incredible amount of data. He knows how valuable this data is if they have the correct tools to glean insights from it. He needs to create specific retention policies for all electronic communication. He’s also always got the looming fear of lawsuits in his mind, so he wants to remain in regulatory compliance. They also deal with personally identifiable information they must keep safeguarded.

The list goes on. Jeremy thought he was going to be directing IT, but he consistently finds himself directing much more and he faces yet another sleepless night.

After Jeremy

Meet Jeremy. Jeremy is the IT Director for a major hospital organization. Jeremy is cool, calm, and collected as he struts into work with coffee in hand toward his beautiful mess of computer hardware and IT equipment. Jeremy knows what today has in store for him and he couldn’t be more excited to tackle the day. Jeremy takes pride in his communication with cross-functional team members and ensures he sets aside time every morning to respond to every single email in his inbox in a timely manner.

As IT Director, Jeremy is focused on reducing costs for IT and reducing the overall burden his team feels daily. Recently, Jeremy spearheaded the implementation of a new unified archiving solution. Immediately they were able to see results.

By streamlining their communication data, the hospital not only enabled their employees to access needed data in the archive quickly, but they also reduced the burden on IT, saving an average of 22 hours per week just from searching for lost emails.

Once implemented, the archiving solution provided the legal teams with direct access to all of the hospital's electronic communication data. This resulted in a quick and efficient process for case assessment, eDiscovery, redaction, and data export without having to wait for help from IT or make repeated requests for missing data. The hospital estimated an average savings of $26,000 per week in legal fees after the solution was implemented.

Unified archiving enabled the hospital to comply with HIPAA and HITECH data security requirements, ensuring that all protected health information (PHI) remained confidential, secure, and not accessible through social media or mobile communication. The archive also helped to reduce potential litigation costs by a projected 23%, while providing oversight on all electronic communication data to eliminate any inappropriate or harmful content.

While the small details were made up, the actual story isn’t. This is a real success story with real results. Want to know how “Jeremy” and his team did it?

Simple.

Retain Unified Archiving by OpenText is an efficient solution for businesses looking to archive their business communication including email and mobile communication data. It is capable of being deployed off-cloud or in the cloud and offers comprehensive native support for archiving Gmail and GroupWise email. It is an ideal solution for case assessment, search, and eDiscovery. With Retain, businesses can ensure that their data is securely and reliably stored and can be easily accessed when required.

Want to learn more about Retain Unified Archiving?

Want to see if Retain Unified Archiving can help your organization, too?

The Micro Focus IM&G team

Know your data | empower your people | drive your future Join our community | @microfocusimg | www.microfocus.com