The End of Email? Think Again.

By Lawrence Garvin, Head Geek, SolarWinds

With the increasing advent of new technologies that allow users to perform tasks faster and smarter than ever before, email becomes an increasingly dated communication mechanism—and to some, this signifies its impending demise.

While email certainly has its drawbacks, including the ratio of spam vs. important emails and the daily task of sifting through the noise (which according to a recent McKinsey report takes up on average almost a third of our working day) businesses understand that email will continue to be utilized as a primary form of communication for some time. In fact, according to a recent IT pro survey, 87 percent agree the very forms of “smart” communication that many believe will lead to email’s downfall have actually increased the amount of email sent and received. So it’s time to focus attention on improving email rather than seeking alternatives.

Email is synonymous with business communication

It is certainly true that we are seeing a shift away from email amongst the younger generation (particularly teenagers), in favor of more immediate forms of communication such as SMS and IM, but there is currently no one technology that can replace email’s role in the workplace and modern life – not just as a communication medium, but also as a personal database.  So to improve email as we know it, we need to start thinking about how to more effectively align it with professional and personal purposes.

Most people think of email as the modern replacement for the traditional postal service.  Compared to other modern forms of communication such as Twitter, Facebook, (Facebook Chat), etc., email most closely mirrors ‘snail mail’ due to email’s ability to leave long-form messages with greater depth and detail that others can reply to in their own time, rather than demanding an instantaneous response.  But the key differentiator between email and social platforms is that it functions as a data repository, allowing users to recall information like previous correspondence, which is crucial for business communication.

How the alternatives stack up

There are a number of services and applications  in the market that are described as alternatives to email, but most tend to deliver only one or more components of what email offers. For instance, many companies use internal communications services that are almost akin to a corporate intranet, which places restrictions on correspondence sent and received—with email, there are no such boundaries. And as previously mentioned, social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook allow instant communication, but both are only really suited for short conversations and are not fit for sharing detailed messages and files.

Business leaders need to remember that these alternative platforms, like email, are better for some uses than others. Rather than looking to phase out email, it’s important to evaluate and manage each platform based on a clear-headed assessment of its strengths and weaknesses. Cloud-based platforms and forums are effective for collaborative efforts and activity tracking (think project management), as well as communication that would require a high volume of CC-d recipients, as these platforms reduce clutter and ensure visible responses in real-time.

But while these mediums are powerful for shared activity, it’s difficult to assign ownership and they don’t have the robust storage and data indexing capabilities of email. So while these platforms are great for tight collaboration and discussion, when it comes to leaving a clear and well-maintained data record, email remains the preferred tool.

Also, for those in roles requiring  rapid responsiveness to real-time issues (such as customer service), instant messaging tools are likely the best bet, with email providing secondary functions like extended back-and-forth correspondence and file attachment transmission.

Managing communication complexity

As more and more self-declared email killers enter the workplace, IT managers need new systems to get a clear view of how they’re interacting at any given time. They also need to focus on making email the best it can be, targeting the most common issues that give grief to users: things like downtime, mailbox capacity, and performance (particularly when it comes to searching and accessing archived mail). In many cases, this will involve finding the appropriate monitoring and analysis tool to automatically collect data and tackle performance issues in Microsoft Exchange.

These supposed alternatives to email all have their own strengths and weaknesses that complement – but can’t entirely replace – email. It is, however, essential that IT leaders drive programs that reduce the friction often associated with email, particularly its volume and archival accessibility. End-users should also be educated and encouraged to make their use of email and its complementary communication modes more productively.

Maintaining relevance

So how long will email rank highest on preferred forms of workplace communication? It’s difficult to say, but for the foreseeable future, it seems email is here to stay. Email remains the dominant communication platform in a market where the vision of unified communications remains elusive for most businesses, particularly in the realm of business-to-consumer communications. In addition, as more specialized apps are introduced in the workplace, the more burdensome it becomes for users to learn new user interfaces and processes. These extra layers of complexity in companies can potentially lead to productivity losses, rather than gains, so continued investment in email will be relatively simple and efficient for IT departments.

Email isn’t perfect, but it is reliable, ubiquitous and highly personal—more so than any of its current rivals. And there’s something to be said about the ability to respond to messages in your own time, with the deliberation and detail they deserve. Can you imagine a world exclusively via SMS or IM, filled with so much constant chatter that you can’t complete a thought without distraction? Only by keeping email alive and healthy – reducing its frictions and amending our end-user habits – can we avoid this scenario.