If there’s one universal truth in information governance, it’s this: Every organization is drowning in email.
Email is simultaneously:
- A filing cabinet
- A conversation
- A record
- A liability
- A storage burden
- A legal discovery goldmine
Users depend on it. IT wants to delete it. Legal wants to preserve it. And the system can’t distinguish a birthday invitation from a message containing project specs and a critical attachment.
But email is only the beginning.
When systems don’t meet business needs, people create workarounds — spreadsheets, Access databases, shared drives, contractor-managed systems, or entire shadow repositories. These side systems grow quietly, outside governance, outside retention, and outside visibility.
And then there’s the backfile: decades of accumulated email, documents, and data that no one knows how to classify, store, or dispose of.
These risks aren’t theoretical. They’re operational. They slow teams down, increase exposure, and make compliance nearly impossible.
The real issue?
Technology alone can’t solve it. Policy alone can’t solve it. Process alone can’t solve it.
Only a holistic framework — one that integrates governance, policy, process, data, applications, and infrastructure — can address the full picture.
To explore how these risks show up in real organizations (and how to start untangling them), check out What Counts by TrailBlazer Consulting, Episode 13.