Excuse #1: If we need to, we can usually find it
"We usually can find the information we need when a customer calls. Sometimes it takes a while, but once we send out an email to all staff asking for the information, it usually shows up after a bit."
Reality:
It’s true; given enough time, people usually can come up with the information they need. But sometimes time is a luxury they just don’t have ... like when a lawsuit reaches the discovery stage! Trying to find a particular document in an organization has been likened to everything from locating a needle in a haystack to retrieving Indiana Jones’Lost Ark from the government warehouse into which it is loaded at the end of the movie. Most of the time, it isn’t a legal imperative that triggers the search, but rather a business reason. Either way, there is a cost associated with having to do it, and that cost tends to be exorbitant in an unmanaged environment.
Consider that the typical office worker spends 40% of his or her time looking for information, and then do the math. If he had only known, don’t you think Indy would have labeled that crate before it disappeared into the maw of the repository? In this way, you, too, should take steps to index your content for ready retrieval – before it’s too late. (There ain’t no sequel in real-life information management)
Excuse #2: Nobody is going to sue us
"Who would ever want to sue us? I’m sure if push comes to shove, we can find whatever we need to defend ourselves. Let’s not go looking for problems."
Reality:
No need; the problems certainly will come looking for you! The sad truth is that you don’t have to have done something wrong to have a suit brought against you. But if you can demonstrate to opposing counsel that you can readily produce documentation that counters the claim, the whole matter may simply go away before it ever gets started.
Consider, for instance, a dispute over a beneficiary change made to a life insurance policy, which dictates who is supposed to receive possibly significant sums of money following an accident or death. Being able to prove in a preliminary meeting that the change was properly authorized likely would keep the problem out of court – but this can’t happen without a system for tracking and auditing such forms.
Even if the case does go forward, you still must be able to produce court-ordered documents in a timely manner or face fairly significant penalties. Morgan Stanley, for instance, once was fined $1.6 billion in part for lying about its ability to produce email evidence. No one I know wants to risk that kind of punishment! So if nothing else, consider information management as a sort of litigation insurance policy – if you ever need it, you’ll sure be glad it’s there.
Excuse #3: Cost - We've got to pick our battles
"Even if it’s true that organizations typically spend $20 in labor to file a document, $120 in labor to find a misfiled document, and $220 in labor to reproduce a lost document, it’s chump change to us."
Reality:
Chump change? Chump change? There’s no such thing, especially in this economy. Forget the tens of thousands of dollars in wasted labor these figures represent. How about the time wasted waiting for those documents to reappear? The lost productivity of the individuals doing the waiting and/or searching through the files? The customer dissatisfaction that accumulates while the organization chases its tail? These are costs too, and they will quickly doom to failure any effort you make to “do more with less”– and there isn’t an organization today that’s so rich it’s not interested in improving its bottom line.
Excuse #4: Our business isn't located on a flood plane or anything
"Sure, when we see all those paper documents floating around after a flood on the news, we feel bad for those people. But we’re not located in a place where disasters happen."
Reality:
Well, that’s a relief! Imagine being in a place where rivers never rise, winds never blow, fires never start, and coffee never spills ... must be a real paradise, where nothing ever happens that can destroy your paper files!
Disaster recovery encompasses much more than floods, tornadoes, and wildfires, as leaky roofs, malfunctioning sprinkler systems, and yes, careless coffee drinkers can cause the kind of data loss usually ascribed to “acts of God”. So be empathetic to those caught in a maelstrom, but take steps to protect yourself as well. You’d be surprised how fast even a small problem can become catastrophic!
Make backups of your electronic files. Move older and/or inactive paper records off-site – preferably far off-site lest the same storm that wrecks your building take out the backup as well. Set established policies to govern which documents move where, according to what timetable, and for how long before they are destroyed. Then maybe you can afford to ignore the perils that threaten your documents – at least until the coffee wagon shows up.
Excuse #5: Information security just isn't at the top of our list
"Yes, we lock the doors at night. And yes, we keep the HR files locked. And yes, we use passwords on our computers. But we need to be flexible. If people want to take information home and work on it on their home computers, that’s a good thing. We trust our employees."
Reality:
Trust is good, but in document circles, it should be practiced the way President Ronald Reagan did when he negotiated with the old Soviet Union. “Trust but verify,” he said, and the advice is as solid for securing information as it was for arms control.
Knowing who accessed what, and when, is a big deal in compliance circles. Further, good practice, if not always the law, requires that you maintain and review logs of all system and user activities. Sure, your employees may be long proven dependable. But what about the hacker who tries to break in over your VPN? What about the drug addict who steals a company laptop from a worker’s living room – and what about the fence who buys that laptop and all the information on it? At that point, no amount of physical security at your office is going to help, as the cat’s already out of the bag.
And by the way – there are other security breaches that have nothing at all to do with people. Consider the tornado, hurricane, or earthquake that breaks your outer office windows and scatters the contents of your files all over the neighborhood. How secure is that information then? For sure, your customers, your legal counsel, and your local, state, and federal regulators will want to know.
ENOUGH WITH THE EXCUSES, CALL US TODAY
952-906-3022
