How to Pick the Right Lion Tamer for Your Records Beast

Someday the world may be a paperless place, but until then, if you have records, you need to store them somewhere.  Storing them on-premises at your office isn’t a workable option forever—at some point, your records inventory (or indexing) takes on a life of its own and becomes a hungry, space-sucking organizational nightmare of a beast, consuming expensive office space and valuable time. A bar-coded records inventory is essential and will help locate records quickly.

It’s a good thing when your records inventory grows by leaps and bounds, because it means your business is flourishing—it is your business activity, after all, that generates all the records.  But when managing your records becomes a task unto itself, when it starts to take time away from the business activities that make you money and diverts resources elsewhere, it’s time to seek professional help to tame your records beast and convert it from a ferocious lion back into a cute, furry little kitten in the corner.

Decisions, Decisions – How to Choose?

When you realize your records are taking up more office space and more head space than you can bear, there’s lots of help available to bring things back under control.  How do you decide which Lion Tamer to enlist in your fight to reclaim your space and your sanity?  Here are a few things to consider:

Seek Industry-Specific Experience

Your records management and storage partner should have experience with your industry’s regulatory and compliance requirements.  Compliance rules are too technical and the risks associated with compliance breeches are too numerous and expensive to leave it to chance by choosing someone who’s still learning how to protect your information. A good vendor will be well-educated in the areas concerning compliance requirements.

Seek Time-Tested Vendors with a Proven Track Record

Like everything else in life, when it comes to managing records, the more you do it, the better you get at doing it.  Do you really have time to wait-and-see when it comes to your records management and storage?  Choose a firm that’s been in business for at least 5 years, so you know they know what they’re doing and they’re not going anywhere.  And choose a firm that already has loads of happy customers—if they are delivering consistently for others, it’s a good sign they will for you, too.

Only Pay for the Space You Actually Use

You don’t need to pay for ANY storage space other than what you actually use.  You wouldn’t rent a ballroom when all you needed was a small meeting room, but if you’re paying for a large space that’s mostly empty because your storage vendor doesn’t offer you utilization-based billing, you’re doing essentially the same thing.

Think Ahead

Your needs will likely change over time, so it’s best to choose a vendor that offers a full range of services and can expand what they do for you as you need it.  Moving your records and starting over with a new vendor can be an expensive inconvenience, so it’s best to choose someone who will be able to accommodate both your current and future needs.

When you’re ready to tame your records beast, we’ll be glad to share our recommendations on what services you need and what questions you should ask prospective vendors, so please ask!  We’re happy to be of service even if we’re not the Records Management vendor you ultimately choose for storage, and there’s no obligation to you. We can help you with a records inventory, a bar-code locator systems, easy retrieval and compliance requirement consulting.

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