A growing industry of Records management.

The number of companies claiming to provide records management services continues to increase daily. It would appear that anyone with a warehouse and a van is offering this service but is it as simple as a warehouse and a van?

In the past when companies were looking for solutions to remove or reduce costs from their business, their first port of call was to remove old files from their expensive office space and put them into deep storage in a remote warehouse where the price was low and access was minimal.

Over the years, legislation has evolved to such an extent that companies have had to be far more diligent in the way in which they manage their corporate records; with stringent retention policies, group standards, and procedural compliance, all being created to adhere to the ever changing legislative requirements.

Understandably, as a direct consequence, technology too has developed in leaps and bounds. Companies now require active management; so they can quickly and easily locate and retrieve the information that they are looking for. Not only does this enable organizations to meet their statutory obligations, but can also give them a competitive edge when talking directly to their customers on the phone for example. Storing information is no longer as simple as putting boxes in an dark, remote, warehouse.

All personnel are potential ‘records’ creators and they all need to understand whether the information they are creating needs to be stored securely and confidentially or securely destroyed.

So, to be successful in this business there has to be a high level of trust and confidence in the supplier by the future client.

One needs to be able to create an environment whereby the records are captured, managed and maintained in a consistent manner irrespective of whether they are electronic or paper. Access to documentation needs also to be restricted to authorized personnel only. One of the major barriers that many organizations face is whether they will be able to access their records when required and to ensure that sensitive data will not fall into the wrong hands. A good records management company should be able to guarantee that records will be physically, or digitally, delivered instantly for urgent items but more normally within 24 hours for the majority of documentation.

Information also needs to be held in a secure environment protected against floods, fire, and intruders. For reasons of confidentiality, suppliers should not publicly disclose the identity of their clients to anyone.

In addition to the physical security and protection of the storage environment, documents also need to be shown to be originals, free of alteration; or in the case of soft copy documents, where the original may no longer exist, to be shown as a true facsimile of the original. This may require special management and certainly will need a full audit history as a minimum. Consequently, it is important that a provider is able to adhere to stringent management procedures and controls.

Retention policies must reflect the requirements of law. If the records management supplier is using their systems correctly, they will be able to notify their client when items are falling due for destruction (remember, retaining a document longer than the statutory period is almost as bad as not being able to produce it in the first instance!) Ultimately, the audit trail will result in a Certificate of Destruction being provided to the customer to complete the life cycle of the documentation and to use as evidence that the client has adhered to the principles of their records management programme.

Standing still in this industry is not an option and the goal posts are constantly moving. Simply putting boxes on a shelf and leaving them in perpetuity is no longer acceptable. Destruction review programmes, deep storage solutions, active file management, digitization, integrated IT systems, and much more, are areas that records management companies need to explore.

Despite the records management industry becoming a complex business, the barriers of entry remain very low. Anyone with a good reputation, a structurally sound warehouse and reliable transport network is quite capable of starting a records management business. Industry experts in the UK estimate that the outsourced opportunity lies at some £5 billion. However, the market is very diverse with some industry sectors being extremely well developed with their own records management programmes, whilst others have yet to ‘dip their toe’ into the marketplace.