Reduced Email Archiving Costs by 30% with New System

Reduced Email Archiving Costs by 30% with New System

Executive Summary

Luminary Wealth Partners, a rapidly growing RIA managing over $500 million in assets, faced escalating costs and inefficiencies with their existing email archiving solution. By strategically transitioning from an on-premise Proofpoint solution to a cloud-based Mimecast Cloud Archive, Luminary significantly reduced their annual archiving expenses. This proactive approach resulted in a 30% cost reduction and a 50% improvement in email search efficiency, freeing up valuable resources and ensuring continued compliance with regulatory requirements.

The Challenge

Luminary Wealth Partners experienced substantial growth in recent years, directly impacting their email archiving needs and associated costs. Their existing on-premise Proofpoint solution, while initially adequate, struggled to keep pace with the firm's expanding data volume. Several key challenges emerged:

• Rising Storage Costs: As the volume of email data grew exponentially (averaging 15% year-over-year), the cost of maintaining the on-premise storage infrastructure became unsustainable. Luminary was projecting an increase of $12,000 annually just to maintain sufficient storage capacity. Their total archiving costs were $40,000 annually.
• Inefficient Search Capabilities: The Proofpoint system's search functionality was cumbersome and time-consuming. Compliance officers spent an average of 4 hours per week searching for specific emails during audits or client inquiries, translating to approximately $6,000 in wasted labor costs annually (assuming a $150/hour burden rate for compliance staff).
• Limited Scalability: The on-premise infrastructure lacked the scalability necessary to accommodate future growth. Expanding the system required significant capital expenditure, including hardware upgrades, software licenses, and IT personnel time. They faced a one-time $25,000 expense to upgrade the system.
• Compliance Concerns: While Proofpoint met basic compliance requirements, Luminary's leadership team felt that it lacked advanced features for proactive compliance monitoring and eDiscovery, exposing them to potential risks and penalties in the event of a regulatory audit. A single compliance violation could cost the firm upwards of $10,000 in legal fees, let alone the potential damage to their reputation.
• Administrative Overhead: Managing the on-premise archiving system required significant IT resources. Time spent on system maintenance, backups, and troubleshooting diverted IT staff from more strategic initiatives. This meant an indirect cost of approximately $4,000 annually.

These challenges highlighted the need for a more efficient, scalable, and cost-effective email archiving solution to support Luminary's continued growth and ensure compliance with evolving regulatory standards.

The Approach

Faced with these challenges, Luminary Wealth Partners embarked on a comprehensive evaluation of alternative email archiving solutions. They adopted a structured decision-making framework that prioritized the following criteria:

1. Cost Effectiveness: The new solution had to demonstrably reduce overall archiving costs, including storage, maintenance, and administrative overhead.
2. Scalability: The solution needed to seamlessly scale to accommodate future growth in email volume and user base without requiring significant upfront investment.
3. Search Efficiency: The system had to offer robust search capabilities that enabled compliance officers to quickly and easily locate relevant emails.
4. Compliance Features: The solution should provide advanced features for compliance monitoring, eDiscovery, and data retention.
5. Security: The security posture of the data in the cloud was paramount.
6. Ease of Use: The new solution needed to be user-friendly and easy to manage, minimizing the burden on IT staff.

Luminary evaluated several leading cloud-based email archiving solutions, including Mimecast Cloud Archive, Smarsh, and Barracuda Message Archiver. After a thorough analysis of each solution's features, capabilities, and pricing, Luminary selected Mimecast Cloud Archive.

Their decision was driven by Mimecast's superior scalability, advanced search functionality, robust compliance features, and competitive pricing. Mimecast's cloud-native architecture eliminated the need for on-premise infrastructure, reducing storage costs and administrative overhead. Its powerful search capabilities significantly improved the efficiency of email searches, freeing up valuable time for compliance officers. Furthermore, Mimecast's comprehensive compliance features provided Luminary with greater visibility and control over their email data, reducing the risk of regulatory violations.

The transition to Mimecast was strategically planned, with a phased migration approach to minimize disruption to business operations. Luminary worked closely with Mimecast's implementation team to ensure a smooth and seamless transition.

Technical Implementation

Luminary Wealth Partners migrated from Proofpoint to Mimecast Cloud Archive through the following steps:

1. Data Assessment: A comprehensive assessment of the existing Proofpoint archive was conducted to determine the total data volume, data types, and retention policies. This assessment informed the migration plan and helped estimate the required storage capacity in Mimecast. The existing archive was approximately 500 GB in size.
2. Mimecast Configuration: The Mimecast Cloud Archive was configured to match Luminary's existing data retention policies, compliance requirements, and user permissions. Specific retention periods were set for different types of emails, such as client communications, transaction records, and internal memos.
3. Data Migration: The email data was migrated from Proofpoint to Mimecast using Mimecast's data migration tools. The migration process was carefully monitored to ensure data integrity and completeness. A Delta sync process was used after the initial migration to ensure the latest data was copied across.
4. MX Record Updates: The domain's MX records were updated to route incoming and outgoing emails through Mimecast's servers. This ensured that all future emails were automatically archived in Mimecast.
5. User Training: Luminary's compliance officers and IT staff received training on how to use Mimecast's search and compliance features. This training empowered them to quickly and easily locate relevant emails and monitor compliance risks. The Mimecast system was integrated with their existing Microsoft 365 email system.
6. Decommissioning Proofpoint: Once the data migration was complete and the Mimecast system was fully operational, the Proofpoint system was decommissioned, eliminating the associated hardware and software costs.

The migration was completed over a 2-week period. The firm leveraged the Mimecast API to regularly poll the environment for security events and compliance adherence.

Results & ROI

The transition to Mimecast Cloud Archive yielded significant cost savings and operational improvements for Luminary Wealth Partners:

• Cost Reduction: The annual cost of email archiving was reduced by 30%, from $40,000 to $28,000. This included savings on storage infrastructure, software licenses, and IT administrative overhead.
• Improved Search Efficiency: The time spent searching for emails during audits and client inquiries was reduced by 50%, from an average of 4 hours per week to 2 hours per week. This resulted in a significant increase in productivity for compliance officers.
• Enhanced Scalability: The cloud-based architecture of Mimecast Cloud Archive provided Luminary with the scalability necessary to accommodate future growth in email volume without requiring significant upfront investment. They can add new users as needed at a predictable cost.
• Improved Compliance Posture: Mimecast's advanced compliance features provided Luminary with greater visibility and control over their email data, reducing the risk of regulatory violations. They also automated several compliance tasks, reducing administrative overhead. Specifically, they are now alerted for PII leaving the environment in emails.
• Reduced Administrative Overhead: The cloud-based nature of Mimecast Cloud Archive eliminated the need for on-premise infrastructure management, freeing up IT staff to focus on more strategic initiatives.
• Storage Efficiency: With Mimecast's sophisticated de-duplication and compression technologies, Luminary was able to reduce their overall storage footprint by 20%, further optimizing their storage costs. They were able to reduce storage costs per employee from approximately $120 to $84.

These results demonstrate the significant benefits of transitioning to a modern, cloud-based email archiving solution. By leveraging the power of Mimecast Cloud Archive, Luminary Wealth Partners was able to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and enhance compliance.

Key Takeaways

For other RIAs and wealth management firms facing similar challenges, Luminary's experience provides several key takeaways:

1. Don't Underestimate Email Growth: Proactively plan for the future growth of your email data and choose an archiving solution that can scale accordingly. A short-term solution can quickly become a costly problem.
2. Prioritize Search Efficiency: Invest in an archiving solution with robust search capabilities to minimize the time spent searching for emails during audits and client inquiries. Time is money, especially for compliance officers.
3. Embrace the Cloud: Consider transitioning to a cloud-based email archiving solution to reduce costs, improve scalability, and simplify management. On-premise solutions can be expensive to maintain and difficult to scale.
4. Compliance is Key: Choose an archiving solution that provides advanced features for compliance monitoring, eDiscovery, and data retention. Staying ahead of regulatory requirements is crucial.
5. Quantify the ROI: Before making a decision, carefully analyze the potential cost savings and operational improvements of each archiving solution. A detailed ROI analysis can help you justify the investment.

About Golden Door Asset

Golden Door Asset builds AI-powered intelligence tools for RIAs. Our platform helps advisors proactively manage compliance risks and unlock hidden insights within their client data. Visit our tools to see how we can help your practice.