One look at recent case law, and a person will see the high-profile impact of incomplete eDiscovery responses. As compliance and regulatory requirements become more demanding, organizations are incurring substantial costs in responding effectively to discovery requests. Compounding the problem is the sheer volume of electronically-stored information which is increasing exponentially. Since E-discovery costs are on the rise, organizations are in need of a ECRM solution that assists with gathering only the necessary relevant data. With the proliferation of electronically stored information, compliance and discovery requirements are demanding increased discipline in retaining, collecting, searching, tracking, discovering and managing all electronic information.

To face these technological and economical challenges, organizations must approach eDiscovery proactively. it is absolutely critical for an organization to get its electronically stored information under control by implementing a robust, scalable in-house infrastructure for proactively and consistently managing its content and information enterprise-wide. Ideally this infrastructure would utilize ECRM tools to automate the phases of the eDiscovery processes and incorporate them into a standard business process. Coupled with integrated tools and best practice processes for helping respond to eDiscovery requests, such an infrastructure can help drive down cost, improve responsiveness to discovery requests, improve consistency and defensibility of processes, and ultimately lower risk to the organization.

One of the strongest strategic business arguments for investing in ECRM involves Compliance and Risk Mitigation. Every organization is required to retain specific types of records for specific periods of time. Unfortunately, much of that information is unstructured data. Organizations need to understand and realize that compliance with information management regulations is not an option. It is required by law and is an organizational necessity.

ECRM supports compliance in numerous ways including organizing documents, providing version control, and facilitating retrieval. ECRM also has a critical role in the disposition of documentation. Companies have a legal right to dispose of records no longer required for business purposes that have reached their legal retention period. Since the Zubulake rulings, the Courts have acknowledged that it’s cost prohibitive to keep all your documentation indefinitely. A comprehensive enterprise content records management (ECRM) approach which combines scalable, proactive information and records management capability with the infrastructure needed to streamline the best practices processes of eDiscovery can also support records disposition. Failure to consistently apply a retention schedule based on regulations, corporate policies and business requirements to your electronically stored information will create unnecessary discovery burdens and increase organizational costs. As a consequence, an organization could be required to produce all its relevant non-privileged information requested regardless if the information has reached its legal retention period, even though the company should have legitimately destroyed the information years earlier.

As mentioned earlier, one of the best reasons in building a business case for investing in ECRM is electronic discovery falls under the risk mitigation. There is growing case law in which the courts are increasingly requiring companies to produce electronic records in their original format which typically includes an organization’s email. An effective ECRM approach will deliver repeatable, consistent and secure records management processes to support all types of records including email. Some ECRM solutions incorporate extremely capable search engines resulting in saving organizations thousands of dollars in litigation and discovery costs in addition to avoiding exorbitant fines and sanctions which can cost millions and cause irreparable damage to a company’s reputation.