Case Study - Gabem Management Ltd.

Company: Gabem Management Ltd.
Location: West Sussex, UK
Industry: Financial Services
Number of employees: 60
Product in use: GFI MailArchiver™

Quick Read

Gabem Management Ltd. is a financial services company that provides umbrella company payroll and self employed payment options to contractors and temporary workers. Dealing with sensitive issues such as payments and wages means that Gabem Management Ltd. has to give serious consideration to the security of their network and data. Having already implemented GFI MailEssentials and GFI MailSecurity to counter against spam and viruses respectively, the company chose GFI MailArchiver when they needed a solution to give them control and manage all corporate email communication.

Challenges

Email archiving ensures that all email communication passing through a company’s email servers is stored in a secure and organized structure that can be accessed by an administrator or employee who needs to search for, locate and recover an old or deleted email with minimal time and effort.

Before the company deployed GFI MailArchiver there was no email management policy in place and employees were not expected to decide which emails to retain or delete. Neither were they instructed how to archive emails they received. With staff storing all email correspondence in their inbox or saving to .PST files. This was creating quota problems on the server and an increased risk that important data in emails could be lost or permanently deleted.

This prompted management to look for a solution that allowed them to archive email in a secure and easily accessible location and ensure that any deleted or lost emails could be retrieved within minutes.

“We needed a method to store emails without the worries of users deleting or manipulating the content somewhere other than the mail server. Large mailboxes can have a detrimental effect on server performance, there is also no need to continually backup data that hasn’t changed,” said Mat Lane, Gabem Management Ltd.’s systems administrator.

Implementation

The solution for Gabem Management was to purchase GFI MailArchiver, an email archiving and management product. The implementation of GFI MailArchiver has helped to address various issues encountered by the company. From a management perspective, archiving allows Gabem Management Ltd. to meet compliance and legal regulations, as any request for emails can be met with in a short period of time with the assurance that these emails have not been tampered with in the process. Having all emails archived is also useful should an employee leave the company, as all their past correspondence with clients is centrally stored and someone new can continue the work by having a complete history of emails to refer to.

“No emails can be deleted/modified so we always have proof if ever asked. If someone leaves we do not have to keep their mailbox, easily granting management the access to these resources from within the GFI MailArchiver GUI,” said Mr. Lane.

From a technology perspective GFI MailArchiver the installation and configuration of the software went smoothly and the software integrated itself seamlessly with other technology that Gabem was using, causing no disruption to their current system. It was also well-received by employees as it integrates with Microsoft Outlook and therefore does not require any form of training for end users. It simply works in the background without affecting a user’s experience.

“Simple, intuitive and easy to setup and use. It is compatible with our existing technology, SQL Server, Exchange 2003 Server and Windows 2003 Server. Having a web interface is great as you don’t have to log onto the server to access the configuration. The users find the UI easy to use and accessible because you can link to it from within Outlook,” Mr. Lane explained.

The product’s price was another important consideration and Gabem were attracted to a price that was “reasonably priced and on par with its competitors so it was within budget”.

Benefits

Gabem Management Ltd. researched a number of archiving software and took advantage of the free trial offered by GFI MailArchiver and realized that it suited their needs and business set up, and was the effective solution that they had been looking for.

“We looked at a few alternatives, including MessageLabs, and got an idea of cost. GFI MailArchiver was competitively priced and we were happy with the results we got during the trial period.”

The volume of emails that are sent and received on a daily basis in the company means that there is a lot of important information held in individual workstations that could all prove to be critical for business dealings therefore it was important to know that this data could be stored in a central location and could be easily searched and emails recovered. For Gabem Management Ltd. the installation of GFI MailArchiver meant that “we were in control of our data” and it has also had positive results on the hardware of the company. “People have to work slightly differently as they can no longer horde emails in their mailbox, but it has freed up resources on the mail server.”

Target reached

“With GFI MailArchiver we can now hold on to valuable information that would otherwise have been deleted and users are now accountable for their email communication.”

Links

For more information about GFI MailArchiver visit: http://www.gfi.com/mailarchiver/

^{March 2009}