As 2014 is upon us, I would like to take a minute and think back on the somewhat crazy year that was 2013. While a number of good things happened throughout the course of the year, that’s not what sticks in my head. Maybe it’s because our duties are helping businesses keep their information safe through offsite records storage, but what flashes through my mind when I think about 2013 are fires, earthquakes and floods, all the kinds of things that can stop a business in its tracks.
Between
hurricanes like Sandy, huge fires out west, powerful tornadoes and fierce
spring storms, the past year was a banner one for disasters, and that means
that 2014 and the upcoming years are the perfect time for businesses and
organizations to take a good, hard look at their physical records and decide
what they can live without. For most companies, the answer is none of it, and
thus begins the road that will inevitably lead them to offsite records storage.
Records management is often a
forgotten aspect of business, particularly in small and midsize businesses,
which nobody seems to think about until something goes wrong. This thought
process invariably leads to significant issues, as many of the important pieces
of paper get buried under boxes in some random storage closet where it could
take days to find them when they are finally needed. Or even worse, the records
get left in some completely unsecure location where they get damaged or stolen.
This may all seem like a minor
crisis from the outside, but jobs can be put on the line when some of these
important documents go missing. There have been many studies that have
investigated what happened to businesses after suffering a major loss of
business data. These surveys found that 43 percent of those businesses were impacted
immediately; 51 percent were closed within two years and only 6 percent
remained after that point.
That’s what makes offsite records
storage such a promising endeavor. The process enables companies to entrust
their documents for storage in a completely secure location, safe from issues
like natural disasters, sabotage, leaky pipes and indoor fires. And by
effectively classifying each document, a company will know where they are and
what they relate to. Those stored records are then always available on short
notice should the company ever require them, and there’s even an option for
retrieval through an electronic format when time is truly of the essence.
With everything that’s happened this
past year, and with the next year not looking any calmer, now is the time to
stop worrying about records storage and put your trust in the professionals. A
theft or natural disaster is a tough thing to manage through, but it’s a little
bit easier when you know your important information is just a call or click
away. Let us do the worrying for you!
