There are several motivations for email management and archiving.  Reducing the pile of unclassified information in the face of litigation and discovery, getting a handle on ever increasing volumes of email that bring Exchange and Domino servers to their knees, managing official records that can be found as content in the body of emails and attachments, reducing the volume of information that must be backed up and the list goes on. 

Compounding these issues in Exchange environments is the use of PST files.  PSTs provide a mechanism for individuals to stash emails outside of a controlled environment where they are difficult to find, eat storage and backup space and pose an in-house litigator’s nightmare. 

All of these motivations are legitimate and many (most?) organizations face one or more.  When email management issues are surfaced, management’s reaction is often to direct IT to “do something” and IT’s natural reaction is to implement a software solution.  Unfortunately, simply installing an email management solution without first addressing underlying policy and classification needs often leads to an underachieving solution that is difficult to defend and in many cases, just shifts the volume of unclassified email into an archive. 

Cutting edge organizations have recognized these issues and are addressing them up front by designing email policies that use user behavior to reduce the pile of email up front and then classify it on the back end.