A Holistic Approach To Records Management

Data Backup, Record Storage, & Shredding

The Benefits of a Holistic Approach to Records and Information Management (RIM) or, Simplicity Isn’t Easy

Today my team and I were invited to present a global records management program to 10 senior managers – procurement, HR, legal, compliance, IT, Internal Auditing were all well-represented – from a 400,000-employee company with 120,000 users of desktops. The presentation took about 3 hours.

In this post and some subsequent ones, I’d like to share some thoughts about corporate records management today.

Today, I’d like to stress why, as a relatively small firm, we were even invited to meet with this large global enterprise:

In short, we have a comprehensive, holistic vision for the management of corporate information. This vision may not be realized by a tool like a software program; rather, it’s an outgrowth of a philosophy that is neither common nor likely to adopted by most firms:

  • Simplicity makes for robust, efficient, and effective records management
  • Simplicity is not easy to achieve. It takes will, and it takes herding cats from different silos to agree to corporate goals; that is, it takes leadership.

However, when an errant email or physical document can cause vast liability for an enterprise, leadership is necessary.

We stressed today the importance of co-locating physical records – at least, those that could legally be moved – that are currently found in more than 90 countries for this firm. This approach raised some eyebrows – ‘won’t that cost a lot’ was one question we heard – but I’d like to suggest why we feel the approach has integrity:

When lots of people can touch a record, there’s a higher likelihood that a problem will happen. When you minimize procedural discretion, when you minimize the handlers of the record, when you minimize the ‘cooks in the kitchen’ – you can make the claim that your system is best-in-class.

However, when you let too many of your employees access your records (in today’s case, there are 1500 records MANAGERS in the organization!) – much less third-party service providers – there are a million ways things can go wrong.

Keep it simple when you envision how to keep things straight. (I often think about David Allen’s A-Z filing system formulation in this regard.)

WE HAVE YOU SECURED

FileVault offers physical record storage, where your important documents are kept in a safe and secure location. With our Premium Archiving, our services are custom-tailored to suit your needs.

FileVault also offers secure storage for your digital records. Data Protection allows you to securely store all of your electronic files, whether it be hard drives, flash memory, or tapes. Our climate-controlled facilities will ensure that your information remains safe from the elements.

About FileVault

Over the years and through dozens of discussions about off-site records storage, our management team consistently heard a common set of frustrations from the administrators, records managers and controllers we met with. We came to one important conclusion. These problems were not only valid, they were completely avoidable.

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