There are increasing regulatory and legal requirements for firms to be able to produce emails, often very quickly. Judges and regulators don’t like to hear that they been destroyed or the archives are in such disarray that it will take weeks to find the requested document or documents.

Small companies are not immune to these demands. In some cases, the deadlines and precise requirements indeed do differ between large and small organizations. However, the differences tend to be small. In the overview, the reality is that small businesses carry a significant burden.

The requirements differ between different verticals. Companies in the health care and financial industries tend to have the strictest requirements between of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Sarbanes-Oxley Act laws, respectively.

In any case, the key is for small companies to know precisely what their email, instant messaging and other electronic messaging responsibilities are. The second step is to take them serious, and buy the necessary storage and archiving gear to fulfill those requirements.