Why Email Management Should Be at the Heart of Green IT Strategy

With the conclusion of COP29 a key focus in recent news, businesses will be reminded to step up and do whatever they can to meet the climate challenge.

The importance of being green

Green practices have a significant impact on a company’s environmental footprint, primarily by reducing energy consumption, lowering greenhouse gas emissions, and promoting sustainability throughout its operations. This impacts companies on the compliance and regulatory side as well as their reputation to customers and shareholders.

  • Regulatory Compliance: Many regions now require companies to reduce their carbon emissions and adopt more sustainable practices. Green IT practices help companies comply with these regulations and avoid fines.
  • Enhanced Reputation: Companies that adopt Green IT can build a reputation as environmentally conscious and socially responsible, which can boost brand value and attract eco-conscious customers and investors.

Identifying overlooked opportunities for Green IT

Obvious practices such as energy use, offices and staff travelling practices will have an impact, but businesses could and should be doing much more.

Large scale data access and storage is often considered important for driving efficiency but is also a key area where companies could significantly improve their green credentials.

Company email accounts and their associated storage offer a huge opportunity for Green IT strategy gains. The energy consumption of company email depends on several factors, including the size and volume of the emails sent, the number of users, the type of email service used, and the infrastructure supporting the service (like data centres, servers, etc.).

What impact does email have on energy use?

The energy used by an individual account or company can vary greatly depending on how many emails are exchanged. A typical employee sends and receives about 100-200 emails per day. If a company has 100 employees, that could mean 10,000 to 20,000 emails per day. This would translate into tens to hundreds of kilowatt-hours per month, depending on the size and type of emails.

  • For a small company (e.g., 50 employees), with average email volume and without heavy attachments, email might consume around 10-30 kWh per month.
  • For larger organizations, especially those with a high volume of communication and larger files, the energy use could rise significantly, ranging from hundreds to thousands of kilowatt-hours monthly.

Most companies use cloud-based email services like Gmail, Microsoft 365, or their own hosted email systems, which depend on large data centres for storage and processing. Data centres consume vast amounts of energy due to cooling systems and servers running 24/7. Cloud services generally make use of energy-efficient practices and renewable energy, but the overall energy consumption is still significant.

How does Knowledgemill help?

Knowledgemill Mail Manager significantly reduces an organisation’s storage requirement. Powerful algorithms remove duplicates of each and every email ensuring that that each email is securely stored once only. This means that users typically experience a 93% reduction in cloud storage needs and a whopping 85% decrease in costs.

Historic email data can also be migrated from its current location (e.g. Public Folders, Outlook folders, .pst files, etc.) to a central database of choice (e.g. SharePoint, Content Server, File Server, your existing document management system, etc.). Knowledgmill’s automated process will de-duplicate, index and compress historic email data, storing only 1TB for every 15TB of data.

Knowledgemill Mail Manager dramatically reduces the use of cloud or on prem data storage and in doing so, makes your organisation greener.

Conclusion

By embracing Greent IT solutions like Knowledgemill Mail Manager, businesses not only reduce their environmental impact but also gain a competitive edge in an increasingly sustainability-conscious market. Additionally, they contribute meaningfully to global efforts to combat climate change, aligning with international agreements that follow COP29’s outcomes.

Please contact us or request a demo if you would like to learn how Knowledgemill could help reduce your email footprint and transition towards greener company practices.

Knowledgemill and future trends

Email Manager

Every conversation I have and every meeting I attend of late is dominated by ChatGPT and generative AI but the challenges for IT leaders remain the same – How do I embrace the latest technology trends to the benefit of my organisation with a limited amount of time, people, and money?

There are several exciting technology trends that may benefit your organisation, including:

  • Democratized generative AI – ChatGPT is being talked about most widely, although Microsoft CoPilot is seeing strong demand.
  • AI Trust, Risk, and Security management
  • Continuous threat exposure management
  • Industry Cloud Platform
  • AI-Augmented development
  • Intelligent Applications

These trends may seem to emerge suddenly, but for someone like me, having been in the technology industry for a great number of years, I can see that they are a natural progression and extension of previous technology capabilities.

As IT professionals, whilst we try to work out which of these technologies will help our own organisation, we still need to keep the lights on and process the company’s business transactions while keeping IT costs within an acceptable percentage of revenue, and as such cost control will always be a key constraint.

Personally, the area I find most exciting is the use of natural language (NL) as a user interface. Clearly, there are advantages and disadvantages to using a natural language interface, but, in my mind, the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages. At last, users can use machines (computers) in their own language and in the way they want to work.

Natural language is a powerful tool for customer service, as it reduces the need for human agents, speeds up the resolution of queries, and can be easily integrated into existing systems. However, natural language also has some drawbacks, such as the possibility of misunderstanding, increased typing effort, or lack of contextual awareness and consistency.

I believe the drawbacks are negligible compared to the benefits of a proper implementation. If you use your own organisation’s data sets instead of public ones and if you train your staff well on how to provide context to their searches, the results are extremely good.

We have been experimenting with this technology for some time and, if the 80:20 rule is applied (use the human brain for 20% of the time and automate the 80%) and your own business data sources are used to train the NL model the results are amazing.

At Knowledgemill we have helped clients including legal firms, construction, accounting, government, and professional services to streamline their email workflows and improve their productivity. Our solutions are tailored to the specific needs and challenges of each sector, and we have a proven track record of delivering high-quality results.

We would be pleased to demonstrate/discuss how Knowledgemill works with your existing systems and how it could help your organisation.  Go to www.knowledgemill.com to find out more.

The demand for Knowledgemill technology is growing rapidly

Email management software

Knowledgemill is pleased to announce the addition of new Clients to the world of automated email archiving. Over the last quarter, we have seen an additional 5,000+ users added to our customer base to support Open Government** requirements, with tens of thousands in the pipeline.

Open Government is a key priority for many public sector organisations, and Knowledgemill helps them tackle the complex issue of managing and accessing their email data. Our solution enables them to meet GDPR, regulation, data retention, legal, and compliance requirements, as well as to collaborate and share information effectively.

This is one of Knowledgemill’s focus areas, solving the email data challenge required to support an Open framework. In essence, how to get control of your email data.  It is often quite hard to decide what your organisation needs. The organisation’s Information Security / Retention Policy is a great place to start.  It should give clarity about the different types of data assets an organisation processes/stores as well as their security and access requirements.

At Knowledgemill we can help by:

  • Creating a single, unique copy of each business email in a central repository.
  • Identifying and capturing only those emails required to be kept for the business.
  • Using AI technology to automate the process of creating a central copy of business emails (with attachments) and removing the requirement for error-prone manual filing.
  • Providing a fast and accurate search/filter capability that allows users, Compliance, and Legal to find the information they need in seconds.

“The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) considers that a government or a state can be considered ‘Open’ when its data, actions, decisions, and processes are transparent, accountable, participatory, and consistently demonstrate integrity. This openness must apply to all levels and sectors”.

If you would like to join our growing customer base, go to www.knowledgemill.com to find out more.  We would be pleased to demonstrate/discuss how Knowledgemill works with your existing systems and how it could help your organisation.

Knowledgemill an OpenText Solex Partner

Opentext Solex Partner

Knowledgemill are delighted to announce a partnership agreement with OpenText to provide our email archiving capability to OpenText customers for Content Server, Documentum, Core Content, InfoArchive and Extended ECM.  4,600 user licences have already been added as part of this relationship with more than 10,000+ already in the pipeline.

Knowledgemill have joined the OpenText Solution Extension (SolEx) Program that extends OpenText product capabilities by leveraging Knowledgemill’s technology to the benefit of OpenText customers. As part of the SolEx program Knowledgemill is sold and supported by OpenText.  The combination of OpenText and Knowledgemill products create complete solutions that meet even the most demanding customer needs.

The problems Knowledgemill solves:

  • Information locked away in staff inboxes – Every business email is copied to a single OpenText database.
  • Time wasted searching for emails & attachments – One single content search for emails and attachments
  • Risk of missing or losing critical information – 100% confidence every business email has been filed in OpenText.
  • Unable to quickly establish the full & current position – Emails are filed in real-time.
  • Staff overwhelmed by email administration – An automatic server-side process.
  • Non business critical emails increase costs – Only business-related emails are captured.

Why Knowledgemill email archiving?

  • Identifies and captures only the emails that are required to be kept.
  • Is a server-side process which automatically replicates mailboxes into OpenText, enabling full search-and-discovery processes (via OpenText).
  • Adopts a rules-based approach (e. archiving can be configured to start immediately, when an email reaches a certain age and/or to archive specific email folders only).
  • Includes an auto-deletion capability against mailboxes.
  • Is compatible with Exchange on premise and Office 365.
  • Can be installed on premise, hybrid or cloud.

 

To find out more go to www.knowledgemill.com

We would be pleased to demonstrate/discuss how Knowledgemill works with your existing systems
and how it could help your organisation.

Open Government Mail Management and Data Privacy

Government Mail Management

“The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) considers that a government or a state can be considered ‘Open’ when its data, its actions, decisions and processes are transparent, accountable, participatory, and consistently demonstrate integrity. This openness must apply to all levels and sectors”.

There is no doubt that ‘Open Government’ is a hot topic right now, but what does it really mean in practice? What do governments need to be doing in the areas of transparency, participation and accountability to qualify as ‘Open’?  What are the uses of new communications technologies which can really advance openness as opposed to merely perpetuating existing bureaucratic practices in a digital environment?  It is a complex issue with many aspects to consider.

There is increasing interest in how technology can support critical email data being made available in support of the Open Government, a challenge all European governments are having to deal with while trying to balance security and data protection requirements.

Our focus at Knowledgemill is solving the email data challenge required to support an Open framework. In essence, how to get control of your email data.  It is often quite hard to decide what your organisation needs. The organisation’s Information Security/Retention Policy is a great place to start.  It should give clarity about the different types of data assets an organisation processes/stores as well as their security and access requirements.

It is a complex challenge deciding what data and information needs to be made available to allow each government department/ministry to do its job and meet GDPR, regulation, data retention, legal and compliance requirements and so on.  Departments with a good Information security policy will have the requirements covered, but may be let down by technology, operational or manual processes.

It is disconcerting how much email data is still scattered across multiple mailboxes and other systems. It makes it much harder to search and find information and work out the business critical from the personal.  The chances of using out-of-date or incorrect / inappropriate personal information are increased – the impact of which could be disastrous.  There is a large amount of unnecessary manual processing still applied to emails, affording significant organisational risk.

We are currently working with a number of European governments and ministries to help them solve the Open Data challenge for emails (and documents) for their historic data and the large volumes of daily email correspondence.

At Knowledgemill we can help by:

  • Getting your email data under control, ensuring there is one unique, central copy of business emails.
  • Identifying and capturing only those emails required to be kept for the business.
  • Using AI technology to automate the process of creating a central copy of business emails (with attachments) and removing the requirement for error-prone manual filing.
  • Using a fast and accurate search / filter capability which allows users, Compliance and Legal to find the full set of information they are looking for in seconds.

Knowledgemill simplifies searching for emails, attachments and documents across your entire organisation by securely storing all data into one central database. You can relax in the knowledge that you will never lose an email or document again, saving valuable time with instant access to all important and relevant data at the click of a button anywhere and at any time.

Go to www.knowledgemill.com to find out more.  We would be pleased to demonstrate/discuss how Knowledgemill works with your existing systems and how it could help your organisation.

Combining Knowledgemill Mail Manager with OpenText’s Extended ECM for complete document and email management

Ecm For Complete Email Management

The amount of information stored by businesses is growing exponentially and it is becoming increasingly difficult to bring under control.  In particular, the explosion of email puts pressure on IT, end users, legal and security departments.

For document management control, OpenText’s Extended Enterprise Content Management suite (Extended ECM) bridges information silos, improves processes, reduces risk and strengthens governance.

Adding Knowledgemill Mail Manager to Extended ECM suite will guarantee all business emails are captured and stored alongside documents in the business workspace gaining full control of your data. Processes are improved by bridging email and document content silos.  By securely storing all data into one central database and using AI technology, the complex process of filing emails is automated and searching (emails / attachments / documents) across your entire organisation is simplified.

Unlocking the critical information in email content drives insights, efficiencies, automation and governance. Business workspaces are provided with a complete set of email correspondence and documents which can be made available to all of the business systems (e.g. Salesforce, SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Office, etc.) in support of every business department (Sales, Finance, Customer Support, Operations, and so on.)

Knowledgemill Mail Manager with OpenText’s Extended ECM will:

  • Provide comprehensive ECM services
  • Tie processes and information together in business workspaces, including:
    • Business content from Extended ECM
    • Business data from business applications
  • Deeply connect data, relations, and roles
  • Ensure all metadata is automatically applied, adding context
  • Seamlessly integrate with your business systems

The IT department can reduce costs by more efficiently managing and storing email messages with their attachments. Users see the potential of greater productivity and collaboration with email management. Ultimately though it’s the legal and security departments that have the biggest incentive. More than any other group, the legal and security departments are responsible for reducing the risk and cost that mismanaged email represents for the business. With Knowledgemill Mail Manager, you can relax in the knowledge that you will never lose an email or document again, saving valuable time with instant access to all important and relevant data at the click of a button, anywhere and at any time.

Knowledgemill Mail Manager 

Knowledgemill are an OpenText Solution Extension (SolEx) partner. The OpenText SolEx Program extends OpenText product capabilities by leveraging partner technologies. Sold and supported by OpenText, these combined products create complete solutions that meet even the most demanding customer needs.

At Knowledgemill we have been working with many organisations to solve their operational email management problems. Legal firms, construction firms, accounting firms, governments, or professional services organisations.  Click on the link www.knowledgemill.com to find out more.     We would be pleased to demonstrate/discuss how Knowledgemill works with your existing systems and how it could help your organisation.

Knowledgemill Email Archiving solution for OpenText Content Server, Info Archive, Documentum and Core Content

Knowledgemill Email

We have recently seen strong demand for a rules-based email archiving solution from some European governments. The demand we have seen has, in large part, how to comply with the Open Government Data regulation requirement? Specifically, identifying and capturing only those emails that need to be kept in an environment where there are increased volumes of messages being processed everyday by 1000s of staff. Poorly managed email represents a significant risk and potential liability, substantial costs and risks correlate directly to the volume of content retained. The issue, however, is no longer about curbing the cost of storing email, but is in minimizing the risk associated with keeping it.

The unchecked growth of electronically stored email information is clearly unsustainable and, as more information is being generated, the greater the cost and risk incurred during the litigation and other e-discovery processes (e.g. Freedom of Information requests). Companies must resolve two fundamental email challenges: 1) Automate and safeguard the disposal of unimportant and low-value email; 2) Capture and retain business-value and intended email records.

The Knowledge mill Email Archiving solution can resolve all these business and regulatory issues.  The solution:

  • is designed to assist organizations identify and capture only the emails that are required to be kept.
  • is a server-side process which automatically replicates mailboxes into OpenText Content Server, Info Archive, Documentum or Core Content, enabling full search and discovery.
  • adopts a rules-based approach (i.e. archiving can be configured to start immediately, when an email reaches a certain age and/or archive specific email folders only).
  • includes an auto-deletion capability against mailboxes.
  • is compatible with on-premise Exchange and Office 365.
  • integrates with Active Directory or 365 authentication.
  • can be installed as an on-premises, hybrid or cloud solution.

At https://www.knowledgemill.com/ we have been working with many organisations – in sectors including Legal, Construction, Accounting, Government and Professional Services – to solve their operational email management problems.

Click on the link https://www.knowledgemill.com to find out more.  We would be pleased to discuss / demonstrate how Knowledgemill works with your existing systems and how it could help you.

The move to hybrid working patterns and the importance of email management

Following the easing of CoVid restrictions, when remote working was a major feature of day-to-day work life, many companies have now embraced hybrid working patterns for their staff in their efforts to boost productivity and support staff wellbeing. This move to a new way of working generally requires staff to spend a limited amount of time actually in the office (or customer site for collaboration, project work or to provide service to a customer).

Adopting a hybrid way of working has its challenges for the organisation to support both its customers and staff.  For email and document management particularly, it highlights any existing challenges of poor collaboration, lack of visibility and inability to find information quickly. These challenges were previously mitigated somewhat by staff working alongside each other day-to-day in the office and being able to interact with each other directly. However in remote working, poor collaboration/communication is exacerbated and has increased the pressure on the IT organisation to find better system solutions to support the staff when working remotely and in turn their ability to support customers in a timely manner.

In organisations across most industries, email is the most widely used form of communication. Daily, key business decisions are discussed and key information crucial to businesses is shared by email. As we know,

email is intended to streamline communication, but it can become a counter-productive tool when the inbox requires so much time and effort to manage and/or when you need to collaborate with other colleagues to support customers and sales activity. 

There are many challenges in providing a full email management solution to a company or business. There are the competing needs of the different stakeholders from Legal, IT and the business. It is usually critical to any business to maintain a complete record of email communications. Balancing the increased costs and risks associated with keeping all information, together with the challenge of making it as easy as possible for business users to file, search and find information, is essential.

The management of emails is therefore key and here at Knowledgemill we can provide an intelligent machine learning email management capability that fully supports hybrid working. Knowledgemill automates the complex process of filing and simplifies searching for emails, attachments and documents across your entire organisation by securely storing all data into one central database. You can relax in the knowledge that you will never lose an email or document again, saving valuable time with instant access to all important and relevant data at the click of a button anywhere and at any time.

Some of the key benefits of adopting Knowledgemill are:

  • Supports remote and hybrid working – access from anywhere at any time – from your laptop, desktop, iOS mobile, Android mobile and browser
  • Minimal disruption – no upheaval (and therefore risk) in switching IT systems.  Allows the chance to maximise your return on investment in your existing Document Management solution. Knowledgemill seamlessly integrates with most Document Management systems ‘out of the box’
  • Little organizational change – users continue to use Outlook the way that suits them best.  Same look and feel as Outlook creates high user adoption
  • Increased productivity – significantly reduces the amount of time staff spend filing and searching for information through the use of automation and machine learning
  • Reduced risk – never lose sensitive or critical information, even after staff have left the organisation. Knowledgemill brings together all emails and documents in one central database, e.g. your current document management solution. As part of an organisation’s information governance and content management efforts, accounting for email is key. Selecting the right email management system, automation and exit strategy will achieve this
  • Improved client service – being able to quickly establish a full and accurate picture in relation to a client or project in real time

Here at Knowledgemill, we can help with email management for your organisation. Visit www.knowledgemill.com or contact us at info@knowledgemill.com   for more information.

Why is ‘zero click filing’ becoming an imperative in day-to-day business

It is widely acknowledged that email is now a critical communication tool for all manner of organisations. Exacerbated by the global pandemic, necessitating remote and hybrid working for staff, there is a real challenge to help users and the organisation manage their email correspondence. The majority of business emails contain critical information for the organisation and require handling with speed and precision to deliver a timely and coherent customer-centric experience.

The need for business critical emails to be stored centrally is key. By using automation (‘Zero click’ filing) combined with machine learning, a business can guarantee that emails are stored centrally and that they have been filed in the right client or project file/workspace. It allows customer queries to be answered immediately by any member of staff because the customer file is always up-to-date.

One of the major concerns I encounter when talking to organisations is the fear that Zero click filing results in emails being filed in the wrong place or that staff fear loss of control. The opposite is of course true, by combining automation with machine learning, staff remain in control but automation removes most of the burden of email administration for the user and saves considerable time previously wasted in filing and searching for business critical emails. Combined with a data retention policy, it reduces compliance, audit and data regulation risk for the organisation and promotes a consistent customer-centric model. 

At Knowledgemill we can provide an intelligent machine learning email filing system that works seamlessly as part of Microsoft Outlook (Office 365 or Exchange) and integrates with the document management system of your choice or the native Knowledgemill DMS.  It also provides a full filing capability for iPhones, iPads and Android phones, which is essential for today’s remote and hybrid working patterns.

At Knowledgemill we have been working with many organisations to solve their operational email management problems, Legal firms, construction firms, accounting firms or professional services organisations. Please click on the link www.knowledgemill.com to find out more.  I would be pleased to demonstrate/discuss how Knowledgemill can help your business, explain the system in more detail and show how Knowledgemill could help your organisation. 

Kevin has been successfully delivering technology solutions to companies for over 30 years both on the buying and selling side of a number of blue chip organisations, e.g. with Deloitte or as a CIO/COO.

Do you need to incorporate all this detail below?

To create and maintain this central database of emails we use an email management tool called Knowledgemill Mail Manager, this can be plugged into my Outlook (and any document management system) or is available on a mobile device. It means I am copied in on less emails as they are always available centrally and I can find any information stored in an email very quickly and easily, regardless of the age of the email. 

The Knowledgemill Email Manager balances automation and machine learning for maximum business benefit. Up to 80% of emails are automatically filed and user control in maintained through the use of machine learning all while removing the burden of email filing from the user.

Email management – A checklist to help select the right email management partner for you

You’ve recognised your email data needs greater controls to improve operational efficiency, reduce risk and improve your client’s experience and maybe up to 70% of critical business data is stored in emails. One of the first questions is, which email management solution should I choose? The answer to this question will depend on your own your business requirements and current IT systems. Here are some of the key considerations and questions you should ask of any potential email management supplier when selecting the email management solution that is right for you and your business.

How much intelligent automation will I get? – Without intelligent automation there will be a dependence on the filing discipline of the users using the system, which significantly increases the risk that not all business emails will be captured. The greater the level of automation the greater confidence a business can have that all business emails will be captured, up to 80% automation is a reasonable level of automation.

What happens to the other 20% that are not automatically filed? The users will be prompted with suggestions where to file. This will make it easier for the user and increase business confidence that all emails are being captured.

How easy is it to integrate with other systems? – Integration should be easy with your main business line systems, reducing the upheaval (and therefore reducing the risk) in switching/adding a new IT system.  As a minimum, integration will be required between your document store and your email management system.

Is mandatory filing available? – Mandatory filing is a way to guarantee all business emails will be captured. Mandatory can come in the form of soft or hard mandatory filing. Soft mandatory filing is where the user can still delete non-business emails without filing, whereas hard mandatory filing will ensure all emails are captured, although non-business emails could be captured in a private, or garbage area. Mandatory filing allows the business to balance the required controls with the needs of the user to remove the burden of email filing.

How intuitive / easy to use is it for the user? – This includes how the system can be accessed from their current email window, browser, mobile, etc. Ideally access is from any location the user works from at any time. Does the system extend the current user capability or does it disrupt it? How quick and easy is it to learn the new system?

Does it support your existing operational processes – Ideally the new system will automate existing operational processes and not change them. As an example, can the new system recognise adding new clients, projects, suppliers etc automatically or does it increase the administration burden on the organisation?

How good is the filtering and search capability? – It should be quick and easy to find the information the user is looking for.

Can it be used on mobile? – Does the system provide the same capability on iOS or Android mobiles?

Can it be used with a 365 browser?

Auto-deletion? – Is there a way of keeping user inboxes tidy automatically?

Migration tools? – This is important for ‘day one’ usage of the system. Can historic emails be migrated from all sources (Email, Document Management systems, File Servers, etc.) quickly and easily while removing any duplicate copies of emails.

I hope the questions above will give you a good start although there will be many other questions you will want to ask, both about the functionality, integration with your specific business line systems and your non-functional requirements which will be specific to your organisation. 

There are many challenges in providing a full email management solution to a company or business. There are the competing needs of the different stakeholders from Legal, IT and the business; It is generally critical to any business to maintain a complete record of email communications while balancing the increased costs and risks associated with keeping all information and then there is the challenge of making it as easy as possible for business users to file, search and find information. As part of an organisations information governance and content management efforts, accounting for email is key. Selecting the right email management system, automation and exit strategy can achieve this.

Here at Knowledgemill, we have the expertise, experience and software capability to answer your queries and give you the confidence to take the next step. For an informal chat and see how we can help with email management for your organisation. Visit www.knowledgemill.com or contact us at info@knowledgemill.com

We would be happy to demonstrate our system Knowledgemill Mail Manager  which automates the complex process of filing and simplifies searching for emails, attachments and documents across your entire organisation by securely storing all data into one central database. Relax in the knowledge that you will never lose an email or document again, saving valuable time with instant access to all important and relevant data at the click of a button anywhere and at any time.