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When Disaster Strikes
When disaster strikes, insurance pays to recover but records management provides the proof that insurance exists in the first place.
By Cheryl Ahrens Young, IGP, CSM, CSPO, CTT+, ERMm, ECMp
Document management is similar to having insurance — it’s just good business. You may hate to pay the premiums but you’re glad you did when disaster strikes. Similarly, an organization may hate to pay for a records management program, but when information is needed, or a document has to be found or when one needs to recover the organization from a disaster, or litigation responsive document production, or SOx audits, or “right to be forgotten” requests,
or,
or,
or,
it is a relief to know the records management program is there and functioning.
- Consistent problems with lost or misfiled unstructured data – that document Manny worked on but Manny is no longer there so you can’t ask him but you really need it!
- Lack of integrity in structured data – misspellings, abbreviations, acronyms
- High volumes of duplicate documents - identifying the “real” record takes time
- Lower productivity - employees’ time wasted looking for complete and accurate information
- Litigation or audit document production across the enterprise – what a fire drill!
- Requirements for regulatory compliance - CCPA, CPRA, GDPR, SOC, HIPAA or SOx
Records Management: Who Needs It? You Do!
Records Management: Who Needs It? You Do!
By Cheryl Ahrens Young, IGP, CSM, CSPO, CTT+, ERMm, ECMp
Whether your business is a publicly traded multi-national corporation or a sole proprietorship servicing one community, or a government agency, you need to manage your business records.
Why?
- Litigation – Still the number one reason organizations go out of business! There is no question that the United States is the most litigious country in the world. You need to maintain business records that support your business decisions, your operations and your treatment of individuals for the length of time required by agencies regulating your business, and, as dictated by the statutes of limitations for someone to bring a claim against you.
- Corporate Image – information breaches lead to a lack of confidence in your customer base and often lead to class action lawsuits
- Communication – a Records Management Program covers the how to’s:
o How to “write for the record” so intentions are clear
o How to write a business email
o How to and when to dispose of drafts
o How to consistently classify and label documents
o How to dispose of records and non-records
- Cost Control – If you don’t need it for legal, regulatory or operational reasons, why keep it?
o Keeping records beyond their useful life leaves them open to discovery.
o Avoiding fines for privacy breaches.
o Why pay to store records that are no longer required or useful?
- Improved Customer Service – When you keep only the most active records close by or online, retrieval time to look up a customer question or address a complaint takes seconds or minutes instead of hours and days.
RIM is not a new concept
- “Failure to adopt a compliant records retention and destruction protocol that permits cost effective access to relevant records and creates an audit trail subjects the non-compliant litigant to sanctions and constitutes spoliation”
Starbucks Corp. v. ADT Security Services, Inc. 2009
