From complying with regulations, to reducing clutter and freeing up storage space, there may be several reasons for destroying your organization’s physical documents and digital drives at regular intervals. Since office shredding machines are not the best solution for safe and permanent disposal of records, partnering with a professional shredding company is an important step in protecting your business from a number of potential risks.
Professional Records Management Services Can Make the Job Easier
Did you know the average office worker generates about 10,000 sheets of paper per year? While technological advances and cloud-based storage solutions may have reduced the dependence on paper records, achieving a 100% paperless office is still an ideology and not a reality. No matter how small or large your company, and how sophisticated your systems and technology, you may still have to preserve and manage heaps and tons of physical files and documents on an ongoing basis.
Tossing something into the garbage or recycle bin may seem like the end of it. However, that is not true when it comes to getting rid of sensitive or confidential digital documents. Anyone with a basic understanding of technology can retrieve deleted electronic information through software or apps that are freely available on the internet. If fraudsters or cybercriminals get access to such devices, they can use the information pertaining to your business, customers, employees or vendors for various illegal purposes, severely impacting your company’s brand and credibility. In fact, you may have to deal with several other repercussions, including loss of revenue and intellectual property, and expensive lawsuits and fines for non-compliance with the applicable privacy laws.
Self-storage units are an excellent option for stowing your excess furniture, lawn equipment, seasonal goods, outgrown clothes or toys, and other such personal items. However, it may not be the best way to store and preserve your business related files and documents. While it may seem like an easy and quick fix to stuff boxes, self-storage is not a sustainable option for any business, small or large. The experts at Crown Information Management discuss the likely impact of self-storage for business records, and why hiring a professional records management service may be better for your business.
There are many factors that can disrupt your business operations or even bring your entire organization to a complete standstill. While a COVID-19 kind of global pandemic may be a once in a lifetime occurrence, the possibilities of natural disasters, terrorist attacks, server malfunctions, coordinated cyberattacks, or major power outages are other realities of the present times. Not having a strategy or plan to mitigate such threats, recover the damages, and restore your operations could severely impact your customers, employees, and not to mention, your balance sheet. To quote Benjamin Franklin, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
Even as the world is dealing with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s important to keep in mind that we cannot let our guard down against natural disasters. In Florida, we know that hurricane season is not too far away. Every year, come June, the sunshine state experiences heavy rain, strong gusts of wind, and storm surges that lead to devastation of life and property. With 40% of all U.S. hurricanes hitting Florida, it’s critical that businesses and individuals prepare to face the next storm season.
The exponential rise in fraud and identity theft in recent years has compelled most businesses to continually evaluate the security protocols for both physical and digital records. It is about protecting the data and information throughout its lifecycle, from creation to disposal. While you may have implemented several measures to safely store your paper files and electronic data, you also need to ensure the robustness of your data destruction methods. Without a proper chain of custody, there can be leakages at any stage of the document shredding process, which in turn can have devastating effects on your business.
In the age of paperless offices, you may think you need to convert all your physical records to electronic data that eventually rests on a variety of offline and online networks. Whether it is on the advice of your technology vendors, or due to newer mandates introduced in federal, state or industry-specific legislations, you may transfer vast amounts of personal, financial and business information onto the cloud. However, it’s important to realize that your cloud storage or on-premise servers are not invincible. The number of instances of data breaches that make daily headlines are proof of the fact that online storage has more than its fair share of security risks. In fact, any kind of digital presence makes you and your business vulnerable to a number of technical glitches, hacks, and cybercrimes. This includes privacy violations, identity theft, loss of sensitive information, or crippling of business operations due to malware and ransomware attacks.
Records management may seem like a mundane task that just helps organize your physical or digital files and folders for future retrieval. However, have you considered the repercussions of not doing this right? Whether it is a compliance issue or a security breach, sometimes a single piece of paper may have the potential to prevent a public relations crisis, or a complete corporate debacle. Essentially, not producing the right document at the right time could impact your business in a number of ways, including, expensive lawsuits, hefty regulatory fines, huge negative publicity, loss of trust amongst stakeholders, customer attrition, decreased profitability, and more.
However, records management is not just about stacking papers in files or boxes and storing them in a safe deposit vault. Over time, you may build such a massive repository, that it may be impossible to identify and retrieve records, in the absence of proper classification, sorting, and coding of documents. Moreover, you may also need to be mindful of the applicable state, federal and industry-specific regulations that mandate permanent retention, or secure destruction of certain types of records.
At Crown Information Management, we believe professional record management is a secret weapon that every business should consider adding to their arsenal. Read on to know why you may want to prioritize this activity and address a number of potential organizational risks.
For any business, managing and preserving records has a direct impact on corporate governance, risk management, and compliance. Hence, a well-executed records management program acts as a safeguard against unexpected future events. In fact, outsourcing this activity to the professionals is even better. It will not only save your business a significant amount of time, money, resources, and precious real estate, but also help you focus on your core operations, and leave this crucial activity in the hands of the experts.
Here are a couple of the other benefits that your business will enjoy by tying up with a SOC1, NAID AAA and PCI Certified records management company, such as Crown Information Management.
From safe storage and timely access to your business records, to discreet and secure document destruction services, at Crown Information Management, we address every stage of the record lifecycle. Count on our qualified information management professionals and skilled data destruction technicians to protect your business from potential risks.
To learn more about our record management, storage, and destruction services, call Crown Information Management at 800-979-9545. You can also contact us online to request a free quote.
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