Don’t Forget the Paper
Despite early visionary cries of a pending "paperless office," in reality, we're still a long ways away. The truth is: much business knowledge is still stored on paper—nearly 20%, according to a recent study from the Butler Group. Even though paper still plays an important role in information holding, many organizations make the mistake of not including this media as part of their records management programs. The bottom line is: a record is a record, regardless of the media. Paper or electronic, all records must be managed in a trustworthy and accountable fashion according to best business practices.
A week doesn't go by without a story on corporate lawsuits related to records mismanagement. You cannot open an industry publication without getting inundated with a plethora of acronyms—RM, ECM, DM...the list goes on. With so much coverage, why do so many businesses fail to consider paper records?
The confusion is partly caused by the proliferation of vendors offering their spin on records management and other related acronyms. However, the various solutions often fall short of their goal with the inability to manage paper as part of the mix.
Ignoring Paper—The Pitfalls
Records management solutions generally fall into two camps when it comes to dealing with paper: ignoring the paper altogether or imaging a portion of the paper for future use.
The single largest mistake organizations make when implementing records management solutions is ignoring the paper component altogether. While recent lawsuits and regulations have certainly brought corporate compliance and records management into the limelight, it seems that solutions focus on those media that are only electronic. As a result, organizations adopt a records management plan, but only consider digitally born information. That means daily use, retention and litigation holds are only efficient when applied to electronic formats. In the case of pending lawsuits and legal holds, courts do not discriminate between electronic and paper records. A record is a record, paper or electronic.
Another pitfall in dealing with paper is migrating only a portion of the business records from paper to electronic. Scanning entire libraries of paper records is inefficient, time-consuming and often a drain on budgets. It is simply cost-prohibitive to image thousands of paper records in the hopes of needing to access the information in the future. Even if organizations image paper files on an "as-needed" basis, there are still paper records that will not be part of the records program, lending to the inability and inefficiencies of finding records.
Remember, courts look at the ability of organizations to quickly and efficiently produce records. A delay or an incomplete submission is perceived by the courts as an untrustworthy records practice. Fines and litigation aren't imposed on the mismanagement of electronic files alone, but on mismanagement of business records.
Paper Records Management: The Missing Link
Records management best practices are based on processes and policies, not software alone. Software is integral to the automation of manual, highly paper-intensive processes, and paper must be part of the overarching records management plan. The key to the correct process is through understanding your business requirements and including all records.
Bottom line—if businesses still use paper to make business decisions and to manage business transactions, then that paper must be managed like any other piece of business information. Records management is defined as managing documents of record, or business transactions, regardless of media, according to legal requirements and business need. To disregard the importance of paper records is opening the door for corporate risk... The fact is that all information, regardless of media, must be managed. Don't forget the paper.
Smead is uniquely positioned to apply 100 years of records management experience into recordkeeping solutions. Committed to providing innovative solutions for the management of information, Smead has developed a comprehensive line of recordkeeping software.