Tackle Legacy Records without Overburdening Your Budget or Resources

Published On August 06, 2021

Do you belong to the 70% of organizations that for years have struggled with a “keep everything” culture? Have you finally reached the breaking point for legacy records? Are you shifting your focus on “clean-up” projects but worried about how to find the time and money to do so?  

If you answered “yes” to any of the questions above, you are not alone. Everyday, more organizations acknowledge that there are significant drivers compelling them to strategize, and execute on, putting order to the accumulation of records placed in storage over the years. Among them are concerns about over-retention of records, especially those containing personal and sensitive information, as well as the continued strain of the cost of storage on the bottom line.

But putting order to legacy records is filled with challenges: incomplete or inconsistent indexing or tagging, co-mingled records in a single box, disparate systems as a result of mergers or acquisitions, and complexities of calculating event-based retention. Up to now, overlaying all of these issues has been the lack of resources, both people and budget, to enable taking control of your records inventory.

What’s different today? Iron Mountain’s Smart Sort solution.

Smart Sort removes barriers to success in wresting control of your legacy records. It uses three essential ingredients necessary to understand and identify destruction eligibility dates: your organization’s database that includes information about records (i.e., identification number, from/to dates, etc.), your records retention schedule and Iron Mountain’s exclusive coding that connects the records to an appropriate retention rule, including event-based rules. Whether the eligible dates are past due or in the future, the calculation method is consistent.

So now is the time to take advantage of a proven process for tackling your legacy records in a cost-effective and defensible manner. With pressures related to legacy records removed, you can concentrate your efforts on transforming to a compliant digitally enabled way of working.