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Electronic communication tools can provide enormous productivity benefits for an organization’s employees and can provide distinct competitive advantages for organizations of all sizes. These tools can speed decisionmaking; minimize the impact of distance between employees, business partners and customers; and can help an organization to generate new business. However, electronic communication carries with it the substantial risk that employees might communicate in ways that violate corporate policies, various statutes or best practices. For example, the ease with which an email or instant message can be sent means that trade secrets or other sensitive information can inadvertently or intentionally be sent in ways that are contrary to the best interests of an organization.
For the most part, organizations in North America have almost universally deployed systems that protect against inbound threats, such as viruses, worms and spam. Far fewer organizations have deployed systems that monitor outbound content. However, the growing use of email and instant messaging, coupled with the growing variety of other communication tools available to employees, makes the monitoring and management of outbound content increasingly important.
This white paper focuses on the need to monitor and manage outbound content, discusses the key drivers that are making it necessary and discusses the steps that an organization should take to mitigate the risks it faces from employee use of communication tools. Also included in this document are brief descriptions of the companies that have co-sponsored it.
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