9 Great Reasons to Invest in Email Backups Through Your IT Company

9 Great Reasons to Invest in Email Backups Through Your IT Company

Email backups are one of the line items in our proposal that potential clients always pause on. They ask us, “Do we really need our email backed up?” “Doesn’t Microsoft automatically save our emails forever?” The answer I give them is, “Not necessarily.”

Microsoft offers a retention policy for your business and enterprise plans. This policy may include:

  • 30 Days Retention: By default, Microsoft 365 retains deleted items for 30 days. This includes items deleted from the Deleted Items folder.
  • Archive Mailboxes: Microsoft 365 also provides archive mailboxes where emails can be retained for a more extended period, typically several years. The retention policies for archive mailboxes can be customized.
  • Custom Retention Policies: Organizations can create custom retention policies to retain emails for a specific duration or indefinitely, depending on their compliance and data retention requirements.
  • Legal Hold: Legal hold can be applied to specific mailboxes or emails to preserve them indefinitely for legal and compliance purposes.

Microsoft’s email retention policies may vary depending on your subscription plan and any custom configurations set up by your IT services provider. These policies can also change over time, so your IT company should be reviewing this with you and going over options.

At Capstone IT, we offer an additional email backup. Our clients either have Microsoft 365 or Gmail. South Florida businesses should invest in email backups through their IT company’s data backup vendor for the following reasons:

  1. Human Error:

    People are your biggest liability in your business. Accidental deletions or overwrites of important emails can occur within any organization. With email backups in place, employees can recover lost or deleted emails, preventing data loss and minimizing productivity interruptions. It’s not a matter of if someone on your team loses an important email. It’s a matter of when.

  2. Data Security:

    Email communication often contains sensitive and valuable information, including customer data, financial records, contracts, and proprietary information. Without proper backups, the loss of this data due to accidents, hardware failures, or cyberattacks can be catastrophic for a business. Email backups help ensure that this critical data is secure and can be restored in case of loss.

  3. Compliance Requirements:

    Many industries and businesses are subject to regulatory requirements that mandate data retention and protection, including email data. Failing to comply with these regulations can result in legal consequences and fines. Having email backups helps businesses meet these compliance requirements by ensuring data retention and availability for auditing purposes.

  4. Disaster Recovery:

    South Florida is prone to natural disasters like hurricanes, which can disrupt business operations and potentially lead to data loss. Email backups stored off-site or in the cloud provide a crucial layer of disaster recovery, allowing businesses to quickly restore their email systems and continue operations even in the face of a disaster.

  5. Ransomware and Cyberattacks:

    Cyberattacks, such as ransomware, are a growing threat to businesses worldwide – even small and medium-sized companies. Attackers can encrypt email data and demand a ransom for its release. Having email backups can provide a means to recover the data without paying the ransom, reducing the financial impact and disruption caused by such attacks.

  6. Business Continuity:

    Email is a critical communication tool for businesses, and interruptions in email services can disrupt daily operations. Email backups ensure that business communication remains uninterrupted, even in the face of technical issues or data loss.

  7. Legal Protection:

    In some cases, businesses may need to produce email records for legal reasons, such as in the event of a lawsuit or an investigation. Having reliable email backups can be essential in these situations to provide accurate and complete records.

  8. Competitive Advantage:

    Investing in email backups demonstrates a commitment to data security and business continuity. It can enhance the trust of customers, partners, and stakeholders, potentially giving your business a competitive advantage in the market.

  9. Cost Savings:

    While there is an initial investment in setting up and maintaining email backups, the cost of data recovery and downtime due to data loss can be far greater. Email backups can help save money in the long run by preventing these costly incidents.

If you are interested in discussing the reasons email backups are vital to your business and your work, let’s jump on a call to discuss. Visit our contact us page to set up a 10-minute phone call. https://www.capstoneitservices.com/contact-us/