A thoughtful records and information management program keeps your company compliant and cost-efficient. It may also mean reclaimed office space.
Many financial services firms are now subject to a real one-two punch: rapidly expanding records archives and a greater legal mandate than ever to properly store and manage them. Fortunately, an effective records retention schedule offers relief.
Learn how to build a case for your law firm’s revamped records retention policy and put an end to attorneys hoarding files as squirrels do acorns. Crime fighting should be so easy.
Your firm needs a smart, efficient and cost-effective records management program as it sets out to improve speed and productivity, cut costs, and address regulatory requirements. Here’s what to consider as you get started.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the best information governance professional of all? If you know what it now takes to make the leap from “records management” to a considerably more visible role in your firm, the answer may be self-serving.
Rigorous compliance and discovery demands for financial services firms, as well as increased merger and acquisition activity, are just some of the reasons you might be thinking about a records management upgrade. Here’s what to consider.
Successful records management in a financial services firm calls for someone who can set and enforce procedures, establish schedules and train employees—all in an atmosphere that’s hyper-aware of legal and regulatory requirements.
As you assess your financial records management options, consider the advantages of a hybrid system that combines the best of several storage methods.
If you’re hiring away from the competition, be sure to consider how you’ll integrate those newcomers’ client and personal files into your information management practices. Once you’ve done that, take them all out for sushi.
When you perform a careful audit of your records management program’s key performance aspects—including destruction timeliness and compliance with laws and regulations—you’ll almost always find room for improvement.
A data interruption can take a significant toll on your business. But how much would a lost day cost you? A week? A month? If your records are safe, so is your business.
Once you establish a smart records management program, you’ll want to monitor its progress. Key performance indicators can help you maximize productivity and lower costs.
Almost everything we do in our business lives carries the goal of streamlining processes so that we can be more efficient, productive and get more work done on a daily basis. From app deployments and software upgrades to the procurement of new devices, all are aimed at making us better worker bees.
Need to get colleagues on board with your vision for a new records management program? Here’s how to get their buy-in on a strategy that provides your business with the tools and resources it needs to meet secure storage, easy retrieval and confidential destruction goals.
Do you have the right systems in place to protect sensitive records—especially if your industry has tough confidentiality regulations?
As your small business grows and adds multiple offices and locations, your need to manage and protect your records remotely grows as well. Learn to tackle the challenges that arise as you connect with a dispersed workforce.
No matter the size of your business, records management matters. Here’s what midsized businesses should consider as they retain and manage a rich and growing array of electronic and paper-based records.
When lawsuits are filed, email is a prime target and often comes under great scrutiny. That’s why businesses should store and manage email files with the same care as paper-based records and other electronic file formats.
Follow these six steps to set up a smart, practical records and information management (RIM) program that will serve you well and grow along with your business.
Too often, businesses end up with a records management system that is complicated, difficult to enforce, time consuming and leaves documents where they can be challenging to access.
Most banks and other financial institutions in the United States are facing an unusually challenging climate when it comes to avoiding fraud.
With 2012 just around the corner, it is time for businesses to begin considering operational changes for the new year.
Never mind paper records management: Your organization’s electronic records will likely grow at an alarming pace. Here’s how to manage them safely.
The U.S. Battleship Arizona was struck by a bomb during the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the ship sunk to the bottom of the harbor in the tragic prelude to the U.S. entry into World War II. Now, 70 years after the event, archivists are attempting to restore recovered personnel records from the Arizona for a special display in recognition of the sacrifices made that day, St. Louis Today reported.
Go ahead. File it any way you want. But will you find it later? The ultimate success of your records management program depends on your ability to retrieve quickly what’s needed for business, litigation or compliance events. A sound indexing method can help you organize your records madness.
Records management matters, but is your staff on board? Training is imperative so they’ll understand why secure and confidential information management is so critical to your business.
The recording industry looks to Iron Mountain’s advanced best practices for preserving, archiving and, in many cases, restoring some of the world’s greatest recorded musical works.
Records management and storage can be challenging enough to create problems for businesses with a single office. Companies with multiple branches spread over numerous locations face an even more difficult document storage environment, as they face many unique challenges.
If productivity and operational gains aren't enough incentive for companies to begin practicing better records management programs, then maybe they should consider the benefits for protecting the organization during litigation.
Detectives tracking down criminals and street officers prowling cities to fend off crime often depend just as much on background records as they do on the tools directly at their disposal. Adequate policies for filing and document storage have an operational and long-term impact on how a police force functions.
When organizations establish their records management and document storage policies, it can be tempting to focus only on specific regulatory guidelines or operational needs. This creates a reactionary file management policy. While these can be effective, especially to deal with short-term problems, they often create long-term issues because the narrow focus of the management strategies ends up missing important details.
The legal industry is one sector that has clung to paper records, and with good reason. The sector is highly dependent on well-managed records that are accessible, secure and preserved for an extended period of time. This makes document storage a major challenge for law firms because it presents diverse and unique challenges.
Government organizations, whether they are federal agencies or small town utility companies, face the same challenges that private businesses deal with when it comes to document storage. They have to address regulatory standards for personal information, protect corporate data from criminals and preserve financial records for a variety of purposes. However, they also face the unique issue of accountability to the public.
When most businesses think about regulatory compliance, they tend to focus on IT initiatives and efforts to safeguard data on servers and other technological systems. However, many regulatory guidelines also apply to paper records that businesses maintain.
The U.S. economy may or may not be on the path to recovery, depending on who you ask. But regardless of whether the recession will continue, many businesses are operating under carefully-designed fiscal restrictions to avoid taking too many monetary risks. As a result, most organizations cannot afford to overspend on any area of operations, and too many companies may be spending too much on records management and document storage.
Poor document storage and records management can create an unsafe workplace. While the business and security side of properly handling files are definitely substantial, businesses and government organizations cannot afford the possibility of an unsafe work environment.
For most small businesses, an employee never has just one position. Instead, each worker carries a diverse range of roles, such as acting as an administrative assistant and human resources helper at the same time.
There is much for a small business owner to think about when first launching a company. However, it's important that the need to store and maintain paper records does not go overlooked, according to a recent report from the Christian Science Monitor.
With the holiday shopping season about to enter full bloom, it can be tempting for retailers to focus so heavily on generating sales that they neglect key areas of operation.
It’s time to get ambitious about the year ahead. Get ready for 2012 by indexing, imaging, storing and purging all of those records you haven’t had time to organize during the year.
Have you been too busy actually attending to your core business to address records-management best practices? You haven’t committed a crime, but you may be wasting your organization’s time and/or resources. Consider this short list of rules to turn your plan around.
So you’ve decided to purge your garage of useless former treasures? Just sacrifice a Saturday afternoon and make it happen. But at the office, eliminating your company’s unneeded records requires careful planning. Here’s how to do it.
Are boxes of records turning your workplace into something you’d see on a cable-TV reality show? Here’s why it makes sense to seek some outside assistance.
There’s only so much an administrative assistant can do to facilitate a sound records management system. Here’s the why and how of creating an entirely new role in your organization to master this awesome task.