Roundtable Meeting Touches on Trends in Information Destruction Business

During the recently concluded National Association for Information Destruction Inc. annual conference in San Antonio, Tex., several top executives from several top information destruction companies sat down with the editorial staff of Secure Destruction Magazine to discuss some of the top issues affecting the industry.

Representatives included Chris Ockenfels, incoming president of NAID and a part of Document Destruction & Recycling Services; John Bauknight, Shred First LLC; Vlad Vasek, Iron Mountain; Tom Thompson, IPSA; and Nate Campbell from Recall Corp.

While there was some disagreement with various issues, all concurred that the industry itself is growing significantly. Bauknight sees the industry growing by between 20-25 percent. While not putting any percent growth, Thompson sees the information destruction business showing “phenomenal growth:”

Iron Mountain’s Vasak agreed that long-term markets are fine, although in the short term he sees some segmentation.

While overall growth will be strong, what is becoming more apparent for many of the representatives is the fact that legislation and regulations are becoming a greater issue for information destruction companies. Legislation will be important. This is one of the larger challenges for the industry. The list of issues that are cropping up, especially with the growing awareness of the widespread fears of identity theft, is resulting in more stringent policies being put in place.

While growing, the industry also is seeing an influx of both non-profit companies, as well as “industry cowboys.” However, these smaller operations will likely be forced to the fringes, Vasak says.

Campbell sees the plethora of legislation such as FACTA and HIPAA as pushing the shredding industry to a much larger role. While many companies have established regular shredding programs, Campbell feels that the market is only now starting to take off.

Ockenfels concurs. While the top companies already have programs in place, many of the smaller operations are only now taking a longer look at establishing shredding and destruction programs to prevent identity theft.

While more large and small companies are becoming conscious of the importance of destroying documents, all the attendees concurred that the industry will really explode once a high-profile company is hit with a lawsuit for failing to properly destroy documents.

As for the consolidation sweeping the industry, while acknowledging the trend toward larger companies acquiring smaller operations, due to the low barrier of entry it still remains a very fragmented business, says Campbell.

“The new players are outpacing the consolidators.”

Secure Destruction Business Magazine will be reporting more coverage of the NAID show in the upcoming issue of the magazine. Also, make sure you check back with sdbmagazine.com to read more coverage of the NAID show.