Remaining relevant

DeAnne Toto

Recently, I came across a 2011 study sponsored by EMC, a company that builds information infrastructures and virtual infrastructures for digital information. The study was conducted by market research firm IDC. While it is a few years old, the study still offers some interesting statistics that owners and managers of commercial records and information management (RIM) companies may find useful.

For instance, the study says that 1.8 zettabytes, the equivalent of 1.8 trillion gigabytes, of information would be created and replicated in 2011, which is nine times the information created just five years earlier. Of this digital information, 75 percent was generated by individuals; however, enterprises hold some liability for 80 percent of this digital information at some point in its life, according to the study.

“Over the next decade, the number of servers (virtual and physical) worldwide will grow by 10 times. The amount of information managed by enterprise data centers will grow by 50 times. The number of files the data center will have to deal with will grow by 75 times,” the study predicts.

IDC also predicts that by 2015, nearly 20 percent of this information will be “touched” by cloud computing service providers, with perhaps as much as 10 percent being stored in the cloud.

Clearly, RIM service providers need to be attuned to trends like these, as they will shape the products and services they offer over time and enable them to more efficiently become an extension of their clients’ offices.

The industry representatives who participated in the closing panel of the 2014 PRISM International Conference, held in May in Palm Springs, California, understand this, as you will learn from Dave Bergeson’s column on page 13. These panelists noted the importance of finding alternative services to box storage in response to clients’ needs and in an effort to expand their own sources of revenue.

Trisha Rooney Alden, owner of Chicago’s R4 Services, the subject of this issue’s cover story, also gets it. While Rooney Alden says she does not believe hard-copy records and the associated storage opportunities will be disappearing any time soon, she clearly understands the importance of digital information and the need for helping clients truly manage their data.

“Our staff and services are directed at creating a seamless work environment for our customers to utilize our services as an extension of their business office,” she says.

For R4 Services, creating this seamless environment means expanding into imaging as well as offering customized software solutions for its clients, Rooney Alden says.

Companies that continue to rely on box storage rather than embrace services that address the growth of digital information may find they are less relevant to their clients as the decade progresses, and that is something they don’t wish to be.