In spite of extensive technological innovations in the digital and communication sectors, email continues to command a prominent pace as the oldest and one the most sought after means of digital communications. Email is used as a primary medium of communication across industry verticals and irrespective of size of the enterprises.
This has underlined need for an efficient and cost effective email and collaboration solution. However, choosing the right email hosting service can be a daunting task due to availability of large number of providers. You need to consider five important evaluation criteria in order to shortlist the right email service provider.
Protection of digital communications
Email protection includes protecting email content from getting infringed and ensuring that the email is able to block hacking that can be accessed via email. Email hacks can cost huge revenue loss to organizations. This was more than evident in 2014 email hack involving Sony that resulted in loss of $100million.
Organizations need to protect email content from being intercepted by unauthorized individuals or hackers. Therefore the email solution that you are going to choose must be supported by state of the art tools for content security including anti-malware, data loss prevention, spam filters and so forth. Ideally, the email hosting service should be backed by redundant server facilities across multiple global locations that are backed by robust DR policies.
Compliance with security regulations is a vital aspect of email solution service. Businesses need to choose email server hosting service that complies with FISMA and HIPAA. These regulations qualify your business to deal with clients from healthcare as well as government sectors.
User friendly administration
The most significant aspect of any email solution is the level of controls available with users. Right email provider allows the highest level of controls to users in addition to a responsive 24/7 support facility available via live chat, telephone, or email.
In order to be able to exercise greater control of your email environment, you need to choose a provider that offers intuitive and web based interfaces. Established email clients help build list of approved mobile devices, implement PIN lock, and remove confidential data from lost phones.
Every business, irrespective of its size must have flexibility of accomplishing administrative tasks by adhering to timelines. Administrative ease combined with availability of proactive and easily accessible support system is highlight of a perfect email hosting solution.
Flexible and attuned services
Business productivity can only be achieved through a flexible email communication system that has remarkable compatibility with your business. Synching of enterprise web applications with email hosting solution is a major factor for assured business productivity. Any enterprise, irrespective of its size needs to have an easy access and ability of collaborating with shared calendars, tasks, and address lists.
It is also essential to have freedom of selecting right email options. You must choose an email client that provides a wide spectrum of service levels and features. This will help you start off with basics especially if you are a small enterprise. This will also help you grow without hassles of switching email client.
Incessant availability
Network downtime can prove to be an extremely costly event for enterprises that strive on availability in terms of email communications. According to a recent report from IDC, SMBs can lose around $20k for an hour of downtime. This highlights the need to choose an business email hosting provider that guarantees a minimum availability 99.99 percent uptime SLA.
In addition to a reliable resource for business communications, a right email solution helps you to remain connected. This also underlines need or the email solution to be compatible with mobile devices for unrestricted access to emails even while on the go.
Storage and archival of emails
An organized email inbox facilitates ease of sorting. Storage and archival are essential attributes of right email solution. Proven email solutions allow sufficient storage capacity that can be scaled up easily as per requirement. The storage facility is used for archiving important messages so that these would not be deleted inadvertently. Some leading email solutions are also providing established system for email archiving.
The most ideal email solution in this regard would be the one that maintains all email data at one place, so that it can automatically move the older messages to folder for archival. It is also essential to have an easy access to archived messages in addition to a reliable backup as well as data recovery support. Right email service provider provides facility of managing your archived mail right from within the inbox to obviate hassles of accessing locally stored .pst files.
Ideal email hosting service provider offers useful recommendations and advice for creating a robust email retention policy by assisting for implementation of the same via your email system.
It must be understood that your email system needs to be ready to be evolved in response to emerging technologies. This highlights need to get associated with an advanced email client that is continuously focusing on service upgrades and improvement.
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