Reaching the Top: Making your Records Management Case to the C-Suite by Vickie Malis

Your top executives can influence behavior throughout the ranks-and, of course, they also inform your budget. So it makes great sense to get them on board with your records management plan. A key step to that goal is providing solid evidence that your records information management (RIM) plan can improve your bottom line and grow your business.

Many executives consider RIM a necessary but costly administrative function. But sometimes, they can't justify a program at all. Regardless of any high-level complacency, information is your business's lifeblood. With it, you can find new markets to explore, uncover drilling opportunities, and use the latest technology. Information helps you ensure pipeline integrity and comply with regulatory requirements, such as maximum allowable operating pressure (MAOP). And it can streamline business processes.

What to Say and How to Say It

Here are five arguments that will help you change upper management's perspective on RIM. Getting your records organized and accessible means your company can:

1. Avoid hefty fines by complying with regulatory requirements. The strict act that specifies new MAOP requirements (H.R. 2845: Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty and Job Creation Act of 2011) has upped the ante for energy companies. Do you really want to shell out $1.75 million for a safety violation?

2. Save money-and lives-by ensuring pipeline integrity. When the National Safety Transportation Board reported systemic compliance failures in pipeline integrity management programs, regulations got tighter. It costs about $1,500 per mile to verify your program's MAOP compliance via existing records. Compare that with the cost of conducting hydrostatic testing at $10,000 per mile. What a great case for keeping on track with records!

3. Discover new drilling opportunities within legacy records. Advances in technology keep making your records-even long-forgotten legacies-more relevant and valuable. For example, your company has already completed important legwork like gathering seismic data. But inconsistent record-keeping and spotty storage practices may have created information gaps. Once aging records are in order, your company can quickly retrieve information that could be vital to new opportunities.

4. Step up business efficiency and boost productivity. Properly indexed and classified digital records are easier to find-and it's easier to automate processes going forward. It's time to scan paper records to convert them to digital, and gather them in a centralized database. Your employees will be more productive, your business will be more efficient, and information will reach decision-makers more quickly.

5. Reduce storage costs. As your business has grown, you may have acquired other companies and merged operations. If so, you're likely storing more records than you need, scattered among various vendors, and you're paying too much for storage. You'll save by consolidating records under a single vendor and adhering to retention and destruction schedules.

These five points should be enough to convince upper management that RIM can give the bottom line a positive bounce. Have I missed any other ways to get executive buy-in? Let me know in the comments below.

LINK:	http://blogs.ironmountain.com/2014/industry/energy-industry/reaching-t...
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