Gartner introduced Digital Communications Governance and Archiving (DCGA) in 2023, recognising a growing need for compliance and security solutions within modern communication tools. Theta Lake, a DCGA platform, recently explored what DCGA compliance is and what firms need to know.
This new market segment appeared in both the Storage and Data Protection and Data Security Hype Cycles, a Market Guide in November 2023. The first Gartner DCGA Magic Quadrant further solidified its significance in the compliance landscape.
DCGA encompasses solutions designed to enforce corporate governance and regulatory compliance across a wide range of employee communication platforms. Gartner defines DCGA solutions as those that enable policy management, enforcement, and reporting for data retention, surveillance, supervision, behavioural analytics, auditing, and e-discovery. The research highlights the necessity of supporting video, text, voice, and mobile communications within the DCGA category.
Historically, compliance solutions focused primarily on email and instant messaging, known as Enterprise Information Archiving (EIA). However, the rapid adoption of unified communication tools such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Webex, and RingCentral has necessitated a broader compliance strategy. Unlike traditional emails, these platforms integrate voice, text, video, and mobile elements, making them dynamic and complex.
The creation of the DCGA category validates the approach taken by Theta Lake, which has been at the forefront of compliance and security solutions for modern unified communication and collaboration platforms since 2017. Unlike legacy vendors focused on email or voice recording, Theta Lake built its platform specifically for dynamic, multi-modal communication. The company’s extensive patents, partnerships, and industry recognition further support its pioneering role in this space.
Gartner’s research, led by analyst Michael Hoeck, outlines key challenges businesses should consider when selecting a DCGA solution. Buyers must evaluate whether a provider can effectively capture and analyse various communication formats, including emojis, GIFs, reactions, and file attachments, ensuring compliance teams can accurately assess risks. Solutions must be capable of applying uniform compliance policies across voice, video, and text communications.
One of Theta Lake’s innovations includes compliance support for whiteboard tools like Mural. Regulators have expressed concerns about whiteboard usage, leading some firms to avoid these productivity-enhancing tools. By providing security and compliance measures, Theta Lake enables firms to leverage modern collaboration tools while maintaining regulatory standards. Additional coverage areas include work management platforms like Asana and Monday.com, as well as enterprise social tools such as Microsoft Viva Engage and Salesforce Chatter.
The fast-evolving nature of digital communication requires DCGA solutions to offer rapid deployment capabilities, ideally within hours or days rather than the prolonged timelines seen with legacy EIA solutions. Buyers should be wary of vendors offering custom-built solutions with lengthy implementation times. Instead, compliance solutions should function as seamless add-ons to existing unified communication (UC) environments.
Integration with leading UC platforms is another critical aspect. Platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams frequently update their features, often with 60-90 changes per quarter. Theta Lake ensures continuous compliance support by maintaining strong partnerships with these providers, ensuring clients remain compliant despite ongoing platform changes. Additionally, proactive compliance monitoring features help organisations oversee virtual meeting security, screen-sharing policies, and user behaviour.
Infrastructure flexibility is also essential in digital communications governance. Many firms have invested heavily in enterprise archiving over the last 10-15 years, leading to reluctance in adopting new solutions that require replacing vast amounts of stored data. Theta Lake addresses this concern by allowing organisations to maintain their existing archive investments while integrating compliance solutions for modern communication platforms.
DCGA solutions should provide a modular approach to compliance, enabling firms to scale their capabilities based on evolving regulatory and business needs. Theta Lake supports various compliance use cases, including risk detection, cyber incident response, and regulatory archiving across unified communication and mobile messaging platforms.
The transition from EIA to DCGA has been long anticipated, driven by growing regulatory scrutiny and increasing fines for non-compliance, particularly in the financial services sector. Over the past two years, financial institutions have collectively faced more than $2bn in fines for compliance violations. Historically, the EIA sector has been plagued by negative customer experiences, with vendors holding customer data hostage and treating license renewals as recurring revenue streams without delivering meaningful service improvements.
Given these challenges, DCGA buyers may approach the market with scepticism. Theta Lake aims to address these concerns by offering transparent, scalable, and customer-centric solutions. Key buying criteria include platform coverage, modality support, use of in-meeting functionalities, archive environment compatibility, and AI-powered compliance monitoring. By focusing on modular, intuitive deployment, Theta Lake ensures its clients achieve immediate compliance benefits while positioning them for long-term success.
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