Any expectation that nonferrous markets would bounce back after China’s Lunar New Year in February have been dashed. As of mid-April, the tone of the nonferrous market is almost universally bearish.

Almost to a one, scrap metal recyclers are expressing concern that the extended market downturn has left them in critical condition.

The lack of generation remains a foremost concern. Despite the relative strength of the U.S. economy, sources say they are having a tough time getting sufficient supply across their scales. Margins also remain exceptionally narrow, they say, making profits difficult to come by.

The strong U.S. dollar is working to price loads of nonferrous scrap outside of the reach of many offshore markets. Not only has the strong dollar made it more expensive to ship offshore, but several dealers say they also are seeing an uptick in the import of nonferrous metals from Europe.

Looking to the future, many scrap dealers say few signs signaling a turnaround are visible, and they are writing off most of this year as a continuation of soft markets.

Copper, aluminum and nickel are in difficult positions at present, with muted global demand putting downward pressure on prices. One copper scrap dealer says that while some of his colleagues feel a fairly recent uptick in copper scrap prices could continue, a more pervasive sentiment is that after a short rally, prices could drop to the $2-per-pound range in the near future.

“There is extreme talk about markets on both sides,” he notes.

While he terms the copper scrap market “reasonable” currently and in balance, he says that supply “is not that high.” He adds, “Copper markets are fickle right now.”

While copper markets rallied quite a bit in early April, with prices topping some short-term highs, there doesn’t appear to be much confidence that the higher prices will hold, he says.

A large aluminum scrap dealer says the strong U.S. dollar has him feeling bearish about the outlook for this metal. “Right now the problems are that demand is spotty. Secondaries have been flooded with [scrap] supply. While demand [for their products] is strong in some areas, the automotive market is getting flooded [with finished aluminum],” he adds.

Several other sources in the Midwest are expressing similar sentiments.
 

“Tough times,” one larger scrap processor says of nonferrous scrap markets presently. “There is just less volume out there.”

Encapsulating the current environment, another scrap metal dealer says, “Three to four years ago, I was getting 20 calls a month. Now, I am getting three calls a month.”

Perhaps eventually helping to ease finished aluminum oversupply, South American primary capacity is being reduced sharply. According to John Mothersole, director of research, pricing and purchasing services for the consulting firm IHS, headquartered in Englewood, Colorado, in commentary provided to the Aluminum Association, Arlington, Virginia, says Brazilian primary production has fallen to less than 900,000 metric tons, a sharp difference from the 1.66 million tons of production in the country in 2008.

Mothersole says traditionally South American aluminum exports have helped to cover North American deficits.

On a more positive note, the Aluminum Association reports that the U.S. aluminum sector purchased an estimated 785 million pounds of aluminum scrap during January 2015, a 6.1 percent increase from the same time last year.

Further, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), which tracks aluminum scrap figures, estimates that the January domestic recovery of aluminum and aluminum alloys totaled 671 million pounds, 6.6 percent above January’s 2014 total of 629 million pounds. However, reflecting the difficult environment for exporters, the USGS reports that the exports of scrap, not included in the government’s consumption statistics, totaled 225 million pounds, a 23.7 percent decrease from the same time last year.

“People involved in the trenches are not sure what to make of the market,” a second Midwestern scrap dealer says.

The tough supply situation is not limited to aluminum. Another source says that even though China has been fairly quiet, insulated wire “is still tough to get.” The grade had been a favorite of Chinese buyers, and there is still some buying, though not at the levels seen several years ago.

Reflecting the continued problems with China, the recent Purchasing Managers Index for China’s manufacturing sector, as reported by the Chilean Copper Commission, hit an 11-month low in March, falling to 49.2, indicating a contraction in economic growth. The market projected a figure of 50.6. These weak figures could motivate the government to develop a more expansionary policy to stimulate the economy.

In response, Chile, which produces one-third of the world’s copper, is expected to export slightly less copper than it originally forecast.

Nickel and stainless scrap may soon see a healthy bounce. Indonesia’s ban on the export of ores forced China to build up its stocks on hand. With Indonesia’s export ban still in place, several sources say they expect to see China aggressively returning to the market to build up inventory.

Not all things go according to the original plan, and in the case of commercial records and information (RIM) management company Access, headquartered in Livermore, California, that is a good thing.

Access CEO Rob Alston says Dennis Barnedt and John Chendo founded the company in 2004 with the goal of building a regional RIM company serving the records management needs of small and midsized businesses on the West Coast.

However, anyone remotely familiar with Access, which was owned by investment firm Summit Partners until the fall of 2014, when Boston-based Berkshire Partners LLC bought a major interest in the company, knows its footprint extends far beyond the West Coast today. Access is the largest independently owned company in the commercial RIM industry and the third largest overall, with nearly 100 locations in 24 U.S. states and 40 major markets. The company has been listed on the Inc. 5,000, which ranks the fastest-growing independent companies in the United States, for six consecutive years, achieving a 235 percent growth rate from 2010 to 2013, when revenue increased from $32.2 million to $108 million.

The growth trend continues today, and Access says it expects to exceed $200 million in revenue in 2015.
 

Growing in scale

Access has gotten to this point by using a strategy in which acquisitions play a pivotal role, having purchased 82 companies over the years.

“Access has now, for over a decade, successfully executed on its multipronged growth strategy through 1) acquisitions of other RIM providers, 2) by adding new clients through traditional sales and marketing efforts, 3) expanding into and adding new services with existing clients and 4) continually investing in our facilities, technology and team,” Alston says.

The company also has established a presence in Latin America, with three locations in Costa Rica, two in Panama and one in Trinidad.

“So, our current international footprint well exceeds our original ‘regional player’ plan,” Alston says.

Access’ international growth was the result of its acquisition of Retrievex in 2012. Retrievex had a location in Costa Rica, and while Access had an offer from another party to purchase this location, Alston says the company decided to evaluate the operation over a six-month period before taking action.

“The business grew 15 percent on an annualized basis,” he says of that original Costa Rica location, noting that this was organic growth, or “boxes having babies,” as he puts it. “That growth was much greater than what we were seeing anywhere else in our portfolio at that time,” Alston adds.

The company decided not only to keep the Costa Rica location it acquired through the Retrievex purchase but also to look for other opportunities in the Latin American market, purchasing two additional locations in Costa Rica as well as operations in Panama and Trinidad.

While Access’ international growth was sparked by its acquisition of Retrievex, Alston says it has been “fueled by the growth we are seeing” in Latin America.

“Latin America has a larger percentage of unvended business in that RIM is still becoming a science there.” He adds that the region is experiencing its first wave of outsourcing for RIM services.

When asked for good examples of investments in time and resources the company has made over its history, Alston points to Access’ acquisition strategy and, in particular, to his investment of time in this area in his former position of executive vice president of corporate development and integration. “I spent an extraordinary amount of time traveling and building relationships with sellers,” he says of that time.

“We really do have a stellar reputation for being a fair acquirer,” Alston adds. “We are the acquirer of choice in the industry right now.”

Regarding Access’ future acquisition strategy, Alston says, “At this point, no geographical area is off limits for the right opportunity. Here in the U.S., we will continue to look for acquisitions in existing markets that we already serve as well as in new markets. Internationally,” he continues, “we’ll focus, for now, on Latin America.”

Alston, a native of Kailua, Hawaii, who joined Access in 2005 when FileMinders of Hawaii, the RIM services company he co-founded and served as director of operations for, was acquired by Access, says the company serves more than 20,000 clients in North and Latin America. “As a private company, we do not share the breakdown by business line, but I can say that our off-site records management business is the largest, and our digital business is growing the fastest,” he says.
 

Keeping things in perspective

“One of the wonderful aspects of this industry is the inherent client diversification,” Alston says. “We service clients in all areas of business—the legal and financial communities, health care, insurance, government, education, automotive and many others. Both the legal and health care segments are extremely active for us.”

He adds that Access is seeing slower growth in the health care segment relative to historical norms, pointing to the adoption of electronic medical records as the primary factor contributing to this slowdown in activity.

“However, a large percentage of the records that we store for health care clients are not medical records,” Alston says, adding that real estate and personnel records are more common.

The shift to digital records like the one occurring in the health care industry is an area that Alston and Access are paying attention to. However, it is not an area of great concern for the company. “It doesn’t worry me, but we are paying attention to it,” Alston says.

He says the trend is occurring more so with enterprise-sized clients rather than with the small and midsize businesses that Access tends to serve. These smaller companies have capital constraints and realize little in the way of major efficiencies from going digital, Alston says.

However, he recognizes that opportunities exist in offering digital services to clients and sees the best solution being a hybrid between physical and digital content management, particularly in the Latin American market. “Our sales pitch in Latin America more heavily involves digital technology than in the U.S.,” Alston says. The hybrid approach is more popular there given the fact that records management is becoming a discipline in the region at the same time this technology is affordable and more readily available, he adds.

In the area of digital information management, the company offers hard-copy conversion, scan-on-demand and Web-based document management, noting that digital records “can help increase productivity, security, service and compliance while reducing costs.”

Access says it partners with leading technology providers to offer a range of digital records management solutions.

In addition to digital information management, the company’s suite of RIM solutions includes records storage, secure destruction, data protection, information governance and information security compliance.

“We are seeing significant growth opportunities through our acquisition strategy, the addition of adjacent services, like our Data Breach Reporting Service (in partnership with CSR Professional Services Inc., Jensen Beach, Florida) and in our digital business,” Alston says. “We will continue to evaluate other adjacent service opportunities, like the Data Breach Reporting Service that we rolled out last year, and believe there remains compelling growth opportunities in working with our clients in providing other valued support and management services in all aspects of the life cycle of information.”
 

Distinguishing features

Alston says Access’ culture helps to set the company apart from its competitors. “We believe strongly in treating our clients, team members and our community with great respect.

“First,” he says, “we believe that the quality, experience and passion of our team sets us apart from all other service providers. Second, at Access, we feel we have the best combination of customer-focused team members, facilities, operational infrastructure and available capital to grow in support of our clients.”

Alston also says the company’s approach to customer service is a distinction. Access uses a localized customer support model, which he says “provides our clients with a direct and easy method for submitting service requests and resolving day-to-day issues.”
 

Responding to pressure

As clients’ knowledge regarding information management and governance grows, Alston says Access must continually improve its range of services to meet their complex needs while delivering more efficient and cost-effective solutions.

“At the same time, we need to be aware of the increasing pressure on information management, information security and information governance and all the possible liability—and there is significant liability here—associated with improper records management, especially as our clients become more aware of these liabilities and attempt to improperly shift an unreasonable amount of liability to RIM service providers.”

To prevent this shift of liability from the client to Access, Alston says the company pays close attention to its customer contracts. The company’s contracts director helps Access navigate limits of liability and indemnification terms and conditions in client contracts, he adds. Access also may call in attorneys to review proposed contracts depending on their complexity.

“Entrepreneurs are signing contracts, accepting unlimited liability,” he says of other independent records management firms. “Don’t accept it,” he advises other commercial RIM services providers.

Alston says Access has turned business away because of this practice, but he adds that most of the company’s clients are willing to work with Access to create a contract that is fair for both parties.

He explains, “It’s not that we don’t have confidence in our ability to protect the information, it’s just a bad business practice.”
 

Focusing on growth

Access is working toward its goal of growing global revenue to $600 million by 2020, Alston says.

“In order to achieve this goal, we will continually review and look at a number of new ideas that come our way, but most of the new ideas are too early to share at this point,” he adds.

“What may not come as a surprise to you is that we will continue to selectively acquire RIM businesses in our existing markets and in new markets as a core part of our go-forward strategy. We will also continue to expand internationally into new and existing markets with good growth profiles.”

The company also plans to further develop and enhance its digital service offerings and related services and invest in sales, marketing and account management resources to further strengthen its client relationships, he says.

“Long term, we will ramp up our IPO (initial public offering) readiness and also invest resources to explore a REIT (real estate investment trust) conversion in the coming years.”

The author is editor of SDB and can be contacted at dtoto@gie.net.

In today’s business environment, IT administrators must be able to ensure their companies are resilient to a multitude of threats and sources of downtime. Business continuity requires establishing contingency plans for system hardware failures, man-made and natural disasters and security threats that use a variety of data and infrastructure protection solutions from basic backup and recovery to archiving to disaster recovery services.

For enterprises following established best practices, this generally means following the “rule of three,” also known as the “3:2:1 rule.” The rule of three states that a company should have at least three copies of its data on two different types of media, with at least one copy being stored off-site.
 

The encroaching cloud

Using rotational media, such as tapes or low-cost SATA (Serial ATA) drives, and storing them with a media vaulting provider is how many companies have decided to meet this best practice of off-site backup with different media. Media vaulting also has been a preferred method for saving archives.

Archiving is different than backup. Archives are long-term repositories of inactive or little accessed data retained for future use, such as for compliance purposes or as historical snapshots.

Tape, in particular, has for years been a cost-effective, portable media for long-term vaulting. However, for a technology that has been in consistent use in IT for more than 60 years, tape is a much maligned media. Critics of tape say it is fragile, has high failure rates, suffers poor backward compatibility and may require manual handling by non-IT personnel in many instances, such as remote offices. Therefore, industry pundits have predicted repeatedly over time that various new technologies will replace tape.

However, tape has continued to live on. It has been augmented by new types of rotational media, such as SATA drives, where greater search speed or deduplication benefits were needed. However, tape has remained the king of inexpensive, portable, long-term data archiving.

Cloud-based technologies, nonetheless, are having a profound impact on IT professionals and are transforming almost every aspect of how IT departments operate and deploy resources. Cloud storage is simply the most significant change to the IT industry that we’ve seen in the past 25 years. Through automated, dynamic configuration and release of resources, cloud allows IT professionals to accelerate innovation and get more projects done with the same amount of resources.

Cloud storage seems to be a perfect fit for backup, recovery and archiving. Therefore, it is natural to ask: “How is cloud going to affect the outlook for media vaulting going into the future?”

If cloud storage is changing everything from how applications are written to how IT operates daily, it certainly will have an impact on data protection and archiving.

Is cloud storage going to be the final nail in the coffin of tape? Are enterprises finally going to be able to ditch tape altogether? Does vaulting of physical media to a secure location become old fashioned?
 

Peos and cons

To answer these questions, we need to look at the pros and cons of cloud-based archival storage versus traditional archival storage using rotational media, such as tape.

Cloud-based backup and archival storage offers the benefit of automating the process of creating a second copy of data that is stored off-site. For backup, this means IT professionals are able to get their production data off-site easily. This saves IT professionals from the need to buy and refresh tapes and disks, which can be a labor-intensive process. Cloud storage also helps IT professionals avoid the backward compatibility challenge of dealing with multiple generations of tape systems. Using the cloud, IT professionals get to choose from a wide variety of vendors that provide abundant and dynamic on-demand expandable storage. Cloud storage also provides the ability to use this off-site copy of an organization’s data for disaster recovery of critical workloads by rapidly spinning up on-demand virtual machines in the cloud using this data. As a result, RTOs (recovery time objectives) can be drastically reduced for critical information even in the event of a major disaster that prevents a company from operating out of its main data center.

The primary disadvantage of cloud-based recovery and archival storage is its dependency on WAN (wide area network) bandwidth. An enterprise needs sufficient bandwidth to be able to move all data that must be backed up and archived off-site in the cloud. If an operation only has a small amount of data to protect, then it probably has no problem moving strictly to cloud and ditching tape altogether.

However, for operations with large amounts of data or with a WAN pipe constricted by budget or availability in light of location, moving solely to cloud may be impossible. For most enterprises with a significant amount of data, it is not practical to archive all the information they require without using some form of near-line archiving media, such as tape.

To get around this bandwidth challenge, many cloud-based backup solutions provide the ability to seed the initial set of data into the cloud by shipping tapes or disks to the cloud provider. Therefore, from that point on, only smaller incremental backups need to be done over the WAN.

Many enterprises also have compliance requirements for archiving complete sets of data that are snapshots in time. Many may have to meet regulations and retain up to seven years or more of archives. Unfortunately, even with the fastest Internet connections available, for enterprises that have terabytes of data, it’s still much faster to create a set of tapes and overnight them to an off-site media vaulting facility. For example, if we were to try to do this solely over a WAN connection to a cloud, archiving multiple terabytes of data could take days or even weeks.

A separate set of isolated, point-in-time archives of production systems also provides a contingency for other types of disasters. For instance, ransomware is a type of malware that restricts access to an infected system and demands a ransom to remove these restrictions. A simple solution to ransomware is to use an archive to reset the system to a point before the infection took place. This only works if archives are regularly created and isolated from the source, however.
 

The power of two

Will cloud have an impact on the outlook for media vaulting?

The reality is that media vaulting and the use of tape can be expected to continue for many years to come. For small businesses with small amounts of data, a cloud-only solution is perfect; it allows these companies to quickly get their data off-site and to set up disaster recovery services. These are two things that many small businesses don’t do at all today.

However, for midsize and large enterprises that rely on media vaulting today, the outlook remains much the same as it has for years. Cloud can and should be used as a way to provide an additional level of protection and new options for disaster recovery, including disaster recovery as a service. However, media vaulting using tape will remain the most cost-effective means of storing large amounts of data in multiple sets off-site for compliance and other forms of disaster recovery.

Each option has benefits and trade-offs. Each is able to provide protection for different contingencies. Both provide the ability to get important data off-site, and both provide a means to do disaster recovery to meet recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) goals.

Enterprises should look at cloud-based backup and archiving as a means to augment and improve their disaster recovery resiliency in combination with off-site media vaulting. Used together, they provide maximum protection for a variety of disaster and compliance scenarios.

Dave LeClair is the vice president of product marketing at Unitrends, a leader in enterprise-level cloud recovery.

As 2013 approached its final days, Target Corp., Minneapolis, reported that 40 million of its customers’ debit and credit card numbers had been stolen in what has been described as the biggest retail hack in U.S. history.

As 2015 commenced, Indianapolis-based Anthem, the country’s second-largest health insurer, acknowledged that nearly 80 million current and former customers’ personally identifiable information (PII) had been exposed in a massive data breach.

Both breaches have resulted in numerous lawsuits filed by affected customers. The hacks have huge potential fines associated with them, and public awareness regarding the importance of data protection is now higher than ever, says Dave Bergeson, executive director of PRISM International. Chicago-based trade association PRISM (Professional Records & Information Services Management) International represents commercial records and information management (RIM) companies across the globe.

Bergeson says, “Not only have the potential fines associated with these events become enormous, but the awareness among the general public has increased tremendously regarding the need to secure data and, in particular, records.”

As this year progresses, Bergeson says leveraging the degree to which RIM customers’ records are safe and secure will become increasingly important. “We will see more data breaches, and the public will react,” he predicts.

Chad Sorrell, owner of Archive Logistics, Piney Flats, Tennessee, says data breaches will “only continue to snowball.”

He adds, “Data breaches have become a crippling PR piece; this stuff is important.”

Rob Alston, CEO of Livermore, California-based Access (profiled beginning on page 16 of this issue), the largest privately held RIM services provider in the U.S., says customers are increasingly aware of the value of protecting not only their information but also that of their clients’.

“With all the data breach and hacking incidents in the headlines, coupled with increased regulations around protecting and maintaining documentation, I think that recognition and the need to take more decisive actions to protect customer data will continue to grow,” Alston says.

As breaches continue to illustrate the significance of protecting clients’ information, Alston and other industry leaders explain in the following pages the trends shaping the RIM industry and how owners and executives of commercial RIM services companies are responding.
 

1. Compliance counts. Sorrell says that for many commercial RIM firms compliance has become a “robust” department and a growing client concern as a result of threats to private information. The security threats, he says, are not going away.

Bellefonte, Pennsylvania-based Automated Records Centre President Mike Sullivan says the threat of a breach is his company’s single highest sensitivity and priority. The risk of losing control of a client’s information is the No. 1 reason the RIM services provider is applying for the National Association of Information Destruction (NAID) AAA Certification.

Phoenix-based NAID is a nonprofit trade association for the secure destruction industry. The certification program establishes standards for a secure destruction process, including such areas as operational security, employee hiring and screening, the destruction process, responsible disposal and insurance.

While Automated Records Centre considered the certification a marketing opportunity several years ago, today the company sees it as necessary to assure regulatory compliance as well as for establishing checks and balances for the business, Sullivan says.

“In terms of business five to 10 years ago, we sold cost savings, ease of access and tighter efficiency as it relates to a company’s records,” he describes. “Now, while we still offer and sell that, we’re really selling compliance. We have to put our customer hat on: How do we extend ourselves to them to ensure they’re compliant?”

Sullivan says this has created opportunity for his company. In some cases, companies that think they are compliant are nowhere near where they need to be.

He explains, “Everyone wants to be compliant as long as it is a fair investment. Our goal as the pendulum swings is to get it in the sweet spot: If we’ve educated our clients effectively, they’re going to see the value in paying a little more to get the timely, quality service with attention to compliance. Now that compliance is so critical to us, the lack of compliance might be the biggest threat to our organization.”

Blaine Rigler, senior vice president, global solutions, at Iron Mountain, Boston, says whereas records managers might have been part of a company’s administrative group in years past, today they work within the compliance division.

Iron Mountain is a global provider of solutions in records, data and document management. The company stores and protects billions of information assets, including business documents, backup tapes, electronic files and medical data.

“Now they’re part of the compliance organization because I think companies are really starting to understand the role that they play in protecting information,” Rigler states.

Chris Kelley, CEO of COR365 Information Solutions, a Winston-Salem, North Carolina, company that offers hard-copy records management, secure tape vaulting, document imaging services and shredding services, says his company had to up its game to compete. COR365 added a security and compliance officer to its staff to handle facility audits, system audits and various types of training, from employee to Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

“It is something that has become an extra expense, but we also use it as a marketing tool,” Kelley says of the company’s newly created compliance position.
 

2. Limit Liability. Additional expenses emerge when customers expect the latest and the greatest, Kelley suggests. “Our customers are asking for more and more and are not necessarily wanting to pay more,” he says.

Kelley continues, “It’s not just more services, which they want, but the higher level of service, more digital-type services, higher levels of security, higher levels of insurance and liability coverage. I don’t think clients realize the slimness in the margins of what we do on a regular basis.”

Kelley says a challenge for the RIM industry going forward will be in determining who is responsible for what and limiting the liability of the service provider.

Kelley admits that COR365 is “spending a lot more money on legal fees these days because of fighting battles we didn’t used to have to fight when it comes to contract language.”

He adds, “When you look at what we have under our control, the challenge is educating the marketplace about what the laws really say about who is responsible and where those liabilities lie fairly.”

Access’ Alston agrees that this is the industry’s biggest challenge and urges strongly against signing anything with unlimited liability.

He explains how RIM service providers need to be able to defend their operations, processes and infrastructure. Managing risk and liability is critical, Alston says.

“We find that our clients are continually looking to push unreasonable amounts of liability on us,” he says. “In the industry we all need to understand why we cannot accept unlimited liability or even caps on the liability that are disproportionately high in comparison to the fees we are collecting for the services we are providing. Our clients need to have proper insurance in place and not expect us to provide that insurance,” Alston adds.
 

3. Digital and paper must coexist. Kelley’s company introduced a new service in January of this year. COR365’s digital enterprise content management (ECM) iCOR™ by M-Files™ service stores documents, MP3s and videos based on what they are, rather than where they are, creating a simpler, more intuitive system, according to the company.

The RIM industry continues to move in the direction of paper and digital files coexisting, Kelley says.

This is especially important, as more documents than ever before are originating as digital files, Bergeson says.

Kelley explains that the role of a commercial RIM services company is “helping people navigate the chaos that is paper to digital and how to marry the two effectively and efficiently with security and confidentiality in mind.”

Alston says this is the direction in which Access is heading. “We see longer-term opportunity in our digital offerings, like enterprise content management, Web hosting, security software and services and other products that would address other customer information management requirements, regardless of the form of the information,” Alston says.

Despite all of this digital talk, Kelley says his company still sees annual growth in the number of boxes it stores. He warns commercial RIM services companies not to overlook the value of a box on a rack.

Alston says he can attest that paper remains a “very important” part of the organizations Access serves.

Sullivan says Automated Records Centre still considers boxes to be its most valuable solution because of their profitability.

“There’s a significant amount of hard-copy business to be done in the marketplace. It’s still our primary focus,” Archived Logistics’ Sorrell says.

Each industry leader downplayed the idea of a paperless office, saying it has been threatened for decades, is subjective and based on location as well as market size.

While Rigler says “the paperless world will never happen,” he does recognize that Iron Mountain is “getting asked much more often how we can eliminate paper from the process.”
 

4. Certifications: Resources and not roadblocks. Another primary focus in recent years for RIM services providers has been earning industry certifications. Sorrell says certifications—like NAID’s AAA Certification, PRISM’s Privacy+ and the Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements (SSAE No. 16) type I certification—are facilitating the standardization of best practices in security and compliance.

Third-party certifications are elevating the professionalism and seriousness of many industry players, Alston notes.

Bergeson says PRISM members are reporting more inquiries about Privacy+ from their clients.

“Security is important,” Bergeson says, “and its importance will grow. It is only natural that customers will be looking for some sort of measurable assurance that their documents and information will be safe, secure and accessible.”

This is why Sullivan says he sees certifications as resources, not roadblocks.
 

5. Buzz word: Information governance. Kelley says one of the principal “buzz words” in the RIM industry lately has been the term “information governance.”

He explains, “It’s something that is not geared toward storing a box or even building a workflow, it’s more of professional services to help develop records policies and procedures and best practices.”

Bergeson says information governance will continue to grow in importance.

Sullivan says he views information governance as both a challenge and opportunity for RIM services providers. “We need to continue to drive more conversations around information governance by bringing leaders together from different functional groups so there is clarity and alignment on how we receive information,” Sullivan says.

He adds that information governance, training and education are areas of focus for many clients of commercial RIM services firms, which translates to being focused on “data privacy, data security and cyber security.”

Data breaches have made companies and organizations more sensitive to the importance of safeguarding customer data. This creates an opportunity for RIM services firms to sell their expertise, regardless of whether the information in question is digital or hard copy.

The author is associate editor of Storage & Destruction Business and can be reached at mworkman@gie.net.