Organizational
Governance & Compliance: Effective Control over Outbound Email
at the Enterprise Level
An Exact Target Whitepaper Authored by Chip House, Vice President
Privacy & Deliverability, Alison Sales, Manager, Internet Marketing,
Chris Baggott, Co-Founder/CMO
Executive Summary
With corporate governance in the industry spotlight, email as the
dominant business communication medium and a host of regulations that
apply to the sending, receiving, and use of email, Enterprise Organizations
(EO’s) are suddenly tasked with serious questions Regarding Regulation
and control over outbound Email.
How do you move from ad hoc email use to governed, compliant
systems and processes?
What are the risk and exposure points in your industry and
how do you address them?
How do regulations impact what your employees must do internally and
externally with outbound email and how do you evaluate potential solutions
for your business and your industry?
This Whitepaper will explore the specific challenges of email governance
and compliance and detail prescriptive approaches that can help reduce
risk financially, to your brand and potential legal exposure.
Introduction
For most organizations, email is the communications medium of choice.
Whether it is driving one-to-one marketing efforts, customer service
follow-ups, order confirmations, or one-off communications between
internal employees and customers, email has proven a highly effective
tool. It is inexpensive, fully trackable, and -- when properly
utilized -- appreciated by those who receive it.
However, many EO’s have invested heavily in systems and software
to protect their organization from receiving Spam (Unsolicited Commercial
Email), and yet invest nothing in a common platform to protect the
Organization from Being a Spammer. This common platform is essential
in the enforcement of control and compliance
Organizationally, the problem with email is that due to the inherent
accessibility and ease-of-use, it has become nearly impossible to control
outbound email at each touch point. In nearly every Enterprise Organization
(EO), hundreds, even thousands, of business units, divisions, remote
offices and individuals generate outbound email communications with
little (if any) oversight. Insufficient knowledge as to how, exactly,
these disparate divisions, departments, and individual employees handle
email has led to major concerns over brand control and consistency
as well as legal compliance.
With recently the enacted federal legislation leaving little room
for potential errors, EO’s are now going to great lengths to
govern all activities and protect themselves from outside liability.
In addition to control and consistency issues, more problems manifest
within how these EO’s accomplish brand governance and legal compliance.
Although many EO’s implement strict and enforceable policies
regarding outbound communications, marketing, and press relations,
with no systems of monitoring or enforcement, these policies actually
do very little to combat email risks.
Case Study Brief:
The CEO of a $1 billion+ EO attempted to send an email to his mother. For
one reason or another, the mother was not able to receive the email.
After investigating the situation, the CEO’s IT department learned
that the company had been placed on a worldwide block from a major
ISP. This block had been initiated by an activity that took place at
a division in France!
The CEO asked the right question: “You mean to tell me that
it takes two levels of management approval to get a postcard out of
this company, and anyone can send an email with no system in place
to enforce our policies?”
In another well publicized example, The Bob Vila Company was sued
for a mere 41 emails that were not compliant with the 2004 Federal
CAN-SPAM Act.
Consequences such as the above prove why EO’s continuing to
send outbound email must adapt to these primary challenges:
Maintaining Brand Integrity
Managing Subscriber Data across the Enterprise
Remaining Legally Compliant
Avoiding Spam Filtering
This whitepaper seeks to provide an in-depth understanding of each
challenge, as well as an outline of available solutions.
For the continuation of this whitepaper visit: http://website.exacttarget.com/lp/enterprisehomepage_key.asp
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