IG Solutions Part by Craig Grimestad

Ouch, that hurts!

If you've ever uttered those words to a doctor, they probably asked you to rank your pain level from one to ten. Knowing this pain point, they could then dispense effective treatment.

Organizations also have their pain points, whether they're about growing revenues, maintaining efficient operations or building the best mousetrap. But whatever ails your business is typically easier to define and treat, because the cure is likely already in the house: information. More precisely, information economics.

Three Steps to RIM Relief

Once you understand the value and economics of information and apply its three basic tenets, those pain points will dissolve, and your business will become healthier at the same time.

Step 1: Take actions to mitigate your risk.

Locate and classify information

Monitoring how well you comply with regulatory requirements and meet legal obligations

Defensibly destroy information that you no longer need

Protect personally identifiable information

Enforce your RIM policies

Step 2: Contain your costs. Consolidating your records, particularly physical documents, under a single storage vendor can save you a bundle and boost productivity (As you should know - this is Iron Mountain's sweet spot - no one does it better). Other economical productivity boosters include:

Automating classification

Subscribing to tiered storage

Paring down your archives (and securely destroying the rest)

Applying data analytics to your information, so you can make informed decisions that affect your business's future

Step 3: Once your records are in order, you can start extracting value by identifying high-impact information. You can monetize that data directly, possibly by:

Selling it outright, or

use it to Gain a competitive advantage . In the latter case, you can leverage precious information

to Secure new business opportunities,

Grow your business and

Operate more efficiently.

Seek Early Intervention

Now that you've had a quick primer on diagnosing your records and information management pain points, don't wait until you've got a ten on the scale to contact your trusted partner (Iron Mountain would be my choice). Its skilled teams, schooled in information economics and well experienced in RIM, should be an integral part of your pain management plan. Call them in for quicker relief.

Or you can just sit there behind your desk and continue to say Ouch!

LINK:	http://blogs.ironmountain.com/2015/service-lines/records-management-an...
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