Management of Email and External Messages

Correct the Perception of Email in the Company

The vast majority of external messages that an organization receives or sends should not have a private nature. Hiding corporate communication in private mailboxes harms companies.

Whether emails support sales, service delivery, or internal business processes, they should not be private.

• Work must be reviewable—even when it takes place via email.
• Work must be measurable in terms of both quality and quantity.
• Every company should aim for substitutability and continuity of roles.

If business or administrative activities take place through private messages, none of these goals can be effectively achieved.

External Communication Is Not Only Email

Email is the most common medium, but communication records arise through various channels, and systems should be able to combine them. Besides email, common communication channels include:

• Messages through web portals – B2B portals, complaint portals, etc.
• SMS messages
• Records of phone calls

Helpdesk systems (including AyMINE) can combine such messages, and other business processes should ideally provide similar capabilities.

Priorities for a Corporate Email Application

Email systems that receive external messages should primarily be designed to clearly separate private messages (see the next section) from standard corporate communication. For commercial email communication, the system should create a shared environment so that incoming messages can be processed by anyone responsible for the process.

If messages are treated as private by default, no one else will know that a message has arrived until the recipient decides to share it. Most people already have large volumes of incoming email, making it easy for a message to be overlooked. If the recipient becomes ill or overloaded with work, processing may be delayed.

Examples of Poor Message Management

Prosecutor’s Office Audit

In 2025, a public prosecutor was dismissed for failing to process international requests for cooperation. As a result, investigations abroad concerning criminal cases involving Czech citizens stalled. The prosecutor’s office lacked a system for monitoring unprocessed messages, which delayed investigations and the seizure of assets in favor of the Czech Republic.

The problem persisted for years because email communication was not subject to oversight, and no one could detect that the work was not being carried out.

Sales Manager Oversight

A company’s sales department handled inquiries through a single employee. Over time, the employee stopped responding responsibly and failed to answer some requests. The company discovered the issue almost by accident after the employee left.

During that period, the company lost dozens of potential contracts because no one responded to incoming inquiries.

The company began contacting clients again after six months, but by then customers had already placed their orders elsewhere and had lost trust in the company. The total financial loss amounted to millions of Czech crowns.

Injury of a Project Manager

A project manager responsible for communication with a client was injured and unexpectedly absent from work for two months. Because all communication took place through the manager’s personal email account, no one else in the company had an overview of the project’s status.

The manager had always been reliable and was also a co-owner of the company, so the project had not been closely monitored by others.

Before the manager returned, the client contacted the company. Initially, the client tried to reach the injured manager directly, but later contacted the company itself. Only then did the organization realize there was a problem.

The project fell behind schedule, and the company faced significant contractual penalties and a loss of credibility. Although the client did not enforce part of the penalties due to understanding the situation, the company’s reputation as a reliable supplier was significantly damaged. Despite the client’s goodwill, the incident had a substantial commercial and financial impact.

The main issue was not the absence of oversight—if the injury had not occurred, the co-owner would likely have continued working successfully. The real problem was that the project had no risk management regarding team continuity, and project communications were not accessible to anyone else.

What the Law Says About Corporate and Personal Emails

In the Czech legal framework, the protection of email communication is primarily addressed by Act No. 110/2019 Coll., which implements the European GDPR regulation.

Other important legal frameworks include Act No. 89/2012 Coll. (Civil Code) and Act No. 262/2006 Coll. (Labour Code).

These laws imply that it must be clearly distinguishable which emails are addressed to a private individual and which are addressed to the company. This distinction must be clear not only internally but also to the senders of incoming messages.

Legal interpretations commonly agree that:

An email address in the form of <firstname>.<lastname>@<company>.cz is considered personal data, and messages delivered to this address are regarded as private correspondence.

It should therefore be noted that:

If the sender has reason to assume that an email address is private, the message must be treated accordingly.

Proper Management of Corporate External Communication

Limit Personal Addresses

The best solution is for employees not to use personal addresses for communication that is not private.

• Use addresses that do not represent personal data. Common formats include jan.novak.sales@company.com, novak@sales.company.com (sometimes more complex to manage on servers), or novak.sales@company.com.
• For projects, create dedicated email addresses for official communication, such as is-zdt-2025@company.com.

Another advantage of this approach is the reduction of spam. Email addresses are often easy to guess by both people and automated systems, either by trying combinations or by following patterns used for other employees.

Require Employees to Separate Private Emails

Message Flag

Use a private-message flag within the email system. Depending on the employee’s role and communication type, this flag may be enabled or disabled by default. In most cases, however, the default should be set to not private.

Otherwise, if the employee becomes unavailable, no one else will be able to access the messages. In practice, employees are also more likely to keep privacy protections enabled rather than deliberately sharing messages.

Shared Folder

Sharing folders where employees move relevant emails is the simplest approach and is commonly used. With properly configured rules, emails can be moved automatically.

However, shared folders carry risks: messages often lack appropriate protection and maintenance. It is not uncommon for such folders to exceed 2 TB in size without anyone maintaining them. In addition, messages must remain in the shared folder to be visible to others, even if they should logically belong elsewhere.

Replace Email with Other Communication

The most effective solution is often to replace email entirely with alternative communication channels:

• Customer or supplier portals
• Directly integrated messaging systems

These approaches are already standard practice:

• Large companies often provide only a web form.
• Companies use supplier and customer portals.
• Regular clients may communicate via integrated data connections.