Cleaning up legacy records - an intelligent first step in your digital transformation journey
Whitepaper
New research has uncovered how decision makers view the challenge of legacy paper records in their organizations and what they’re doing about it.
Executive summary
Any organisation that has been around for a while is going to have paper records — often times, lots of them.
Although it’s tempting to look in the other direction and keep everything “in case we need it,” this isn’t an optimal strategy. In fact, the over-retention of records can be detrimental in terms of cost and legal risk. It can also limit your ability to address organisational initiatives and achieve your digital transformation objectives.
New research has uncovered how decision makers view the challenge of legacy paper records in their organisations and what they’re doing about it. A recent survey, conducted by a third-party research firm, demonstrates the concerns of decision makers in roles across legal and compliance, records and information management/governance, and information technology. The findings show how your peers are thinking about legacy records and the need to clean up paper files as part of the digital transformation journey — along with the obstacles that may get in the way.
What are organisations hoping to achieve?
The survey looked further into the most important factors around paper records cleanup and what organisations hope to achieve. The top factors motivating paper records cleanup are related to over-retention, organisational initiatives, and digital transformation.
Eliminate over-retention to cut risks and costs
Retaining records in any format past their compliance requirement — known as over-retention — increases an organisation’s costs and elevates its risks. Therefore, identifying records that are eligible for destruction is a major driver behind records cleanup projects.
Organisations can reduce risks by identifying and defensibly destroying records that are no longer needed to meet regulatory compliance. Keeping records beyond retention requirements exposes organisations to litigation risks, security gaps, and the possibility of violating privacy rights. In addition to fines and legal penalties, the trust of customers or constituents could be lost.
On the cost side, tens of thousands — if not millions — of dollars can be saved when these records are defensibly destroyed. The budgets, as well as the physical space required to store and preserve these paper records — whether onsite or offsite — can now be reallocated.
Find what you need with organisation and indexing
One goal of cleaning up your files is to be able to find what you need, when you need it. As you support your organisation — whether in a legal matter, a divestiture, or other initiative — it’s critical to identify the information you need quickly, easily, and accurately. If your records inventory is not properly organised with an up-to-date records index, you’re not only wasting your time searching, but your organisation could also face potential fines or legal ramifications. Think about the implications if you fail an audit due to missing information or don’t meet the SLAs of a contract.