Business Continuity: Protect Your Records—and Your Bottom Line
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.
What’s the cost of storing your company records offsite? Or, perhaps more to the point, what’s the cost of not doing so? If the perceived expense of offsite storage has you dragging your feet, consider this: Such a service could save you money in the short term, and the likelihood of this possibility increases in the event of a natural disaster hitting your place of business.
A 2011 Iron Mountain survey of more than 1,200 IT professionals found that nearly half of their companies stored backup data offsite. Having a location near your headquarters is handy when you need to access your stored records. But having your critical data reside in an entirely different part of the country makes sense—especially if your headquarters is in an area susceptible to specific types of calamities.
For example, a California court system could earthquake-proof its records by storing them in Massachusetts, or a Florida shipping company could easily avoid hurricanes by housing its essential data in South Dakota. Whatever the specifics, offsite storage can provide a range of benefits, often in the form of potential savings on your bottom line.
Creating a Rapid Response System
Certainly the biggest reason to consider offsite records storage is so your company can get back up and running faster in the event of a major crisis. If the sprinkler system goes off and soaks your files and computers, or if a tornado tears through your building and scatters your records, what’s the most efficient way to resume operations and move on? With essential records stored offsite, you’re able to resume operations just as soon as you can get copies of your records delivered.
Create a disaster-recovery plan with your offsite backup partner. Then, should a crisis occur, your partner will know exactly what data to pull so you can jump-start your company back to business as usual.
Reduce Overhead in the Process
What’s the cost of maintaining, heating and running just one person’s office in your corporate headquarters? It’s likely more than the cost of an equivalent space with an offsite records storage facility. So why are you using valuable office space to store rarely accessed data? Give that office to someone sitting in a cubicle and send your records to a high-density, lower-price location that’s tailor-made for corporate storage.
Reduce Disclosure Risks
Nothing shakes consumer confidence like having private customer records disclosed. Ask yourself where your records are best protected from disclosure—in your file room or in a secure offsite location? The right partner will transport and store your records with utmost security from the moment they’re picked up at your location. You will always know the location of your data—and that it’s safe and secure.
Free Up Your IT Department
Hire an offsite records storage facility, and your IT department will thank you. Why? Because all this time they’ve been babysitting data, making sure it gets collected each night and fixing systems when they go wrong. They’d much rather be working on other business-critical tasks.
Insist on Predictable Costs
Natural disasters and other records management problems are hard enough to predict; your storage and management costs shouldn’t be. When looking for remote records storage partners, those that can promise you monthly bills with no gotchas, extras or surprises deserve your consideration.
Offsite records storage won’t just keep your business humming along in the event of a crisis—it can actually save you money while doing it. It’s time to stop dragging your feet and start doing some wise disaster planning.
If You Have the Time…
Any room on that Outlook calendar today? Maybe a half hour later this week? Don’t wait too long: Protecting your company with offsite records management starts with the simple steps of finding a qualified partner and putting a disaster recovery plan into place. Don’t have a plan? Don’t worry—that’s what your qualified partner can provide, as well as some valuable lift with:
- Complying with the laws and regulations that apply to storing sensitive files.
- Managing your records better. Can you get the exact records you need in a timely manner? A top records storage partner can.
- Providing physical security. Does your internal file room offer intrusion detection and alarm systems? Physical access controls? System monitoring 24/7? A reliable records storage partner has all of that.
Iron Mountain Suggests:
Make Data Security Your Business
If you lose the data on which you’re building your business… Do we need to even finish this sentence? Don’t let your company become a cautionary tale. Bring your records offsite and discover a range of benefits:
- Reduce the chances of crucial data being lost. If your records are in a geographically separate part of the country, you stand a much stronger chance of retaining information.
- Put your staff to work on emergency preparedness. Storing your records offsite is only one part of a disaster-recovery plan. Give all your IT employees a part to play, and hold recovery practice drills.
- Improve your compliance record. Many industries maintain rules and regulations about how critical documents need to be stored. With an offsite storage partner experienced in your industry, you can take this burden off your shoulders.
Do you have more questions about your firm’s records management options? Read additional Knowledge Center stories on this subject, or contact Iron Mountain’s consulting services team. You’ll be connected with a knowledgeable product and services specialist who can address your information management challenges.
Related Content:
Most Businesses Require Holistic Approach to Records Management
How Records Management Could Protect Against Lawsuits
The Why and How of Creating an Entirely New Role in Your Organization to Master Records Management