I have one of those as well. The reality is that for large companies,
you can't manage a dozen unique contracts in this day and age -- and
more critically, you can't negotiate a dozen contracts. Size should
yield leverage. Problem is, those local districts tend to look at the
customer from a local standpoint, not a national standpoint. Because
most large accounts tend to have one or two key markets, the deal's
terms tend to get negotiated to those key markets and everyone else is
stuck with the terms, like it or not. (For example, I previously had a
contract with very agressive service windows -- order by 4pm, receive
by 10am -- and that was a problem in certain markets because the number
of boxes we pulled in those markets was quite small. In some markets,
the retrieval window was adjusted during contract negotiations; in
others, they were stuck with it and got dinged every time they missed.)
And when the small markets don't like it and don't perform, that's when
people like Nolene and myself have to go rattle cages instead of doing
more critical parts of our job.

I have a bias against using the storage providers' computer systems for
anything except retrieval. I haven't been satisfied by anything that I
see and frankly, I'm not interested in jumping through hoops with
Information Security and the Privacy Officer if we index personally
identifiable information on a third party system. I also want to be
able to more effectively manage and report on my records and not have
to pay for custom reporting from the vendor. (I suspect that this
concern may be behind Iron Mountain's purchase of Accutrac, but I
haven't seen how they plan to market the Accutrac relationship yet.) As
far as the vendor should be concerned, the boxes belong to company X
and cost center Y is getting billed. That's all they need to know. The
sole advantage in this space is the ability to manage who has access to
your records -- and be able to access all your records from anywhere
with a single sign-on.

I also don't want to provide the vendor (who has a consulting arm) with
my retention schedule and accompanying research. I'm not suggesting
that the vendor would review that information, but frankly, I don't
know what happens behind those doors and I would hate to find out that
they have "benchmarked" my schedules and decided to offer me some
consulting services by contacting layers of management above me. (Why
do I worry about this? Well, eons ago on this same list, I shared some
benchmarking data when I ran my own internal records center. That same
data was picked up by a vendor and was turned into a letter to the CFO
of my then employer, explaining that the vendor could reduce our costs
by 50% and implying that I was doing a bad job. That incident has stuck
in my mind and colors my approach to this vendor even today. The
reality was that we benchmarked against commercial storage continually
and I could show that we were providing better service at a lower cost,
but it was a very uncomfortable experience.)

Am I thrilled about being bound to a single vendor? No, not really. But
it is the devil you know, versus the devil you don't know. While I am
certain that I could obtain better service (i.e. customer focus) and
competitive pricing in my largest markets by going with a smaller
vendor, I also know that the trend in procurement departments is to
consolidate and reduce the number of contracts managed, while using the
consolidated size of the relationship to negotiate more favorable
terms. If I pulled my largest storage volumes from the vendor, all of
my small market locations would get hammered -- and consolidating the
records is out of the question.

And the other problem, as most of us know, is that once you have the
bulk of your records with a single vendor, it is almost impossible to
get out. Hostage fees notwithstanding, the cost of retrieval and
management of the move process generally will far outweigh any price
advantage of the move and no one in a corporate setting wants to write
that big check when the payback is years down the road. Add in hostage
fees and you're never leaving -- and that, unfortunately, is the
leverage that the vendors have over their customers -- and sometimes
tends to create a relationship where the vendor tells (or is perceived
to tell) the customer what the terms of the deal will be. That is not
always the case, but it is a huge impediment to good relations between
vendor and customer.

It is my practice to negotiate exit terms and performance clauses into
records storage contracts -- always negotiate the divorce before the
wedding. The vendor has to have skin in the game every day. If you
start with the vendor's stock contract, you lose every time. While some
vendors do not like custom contracts, the reality remains that you are
the customer and the records belong to you. You have every right to set
the terms of the agreement and further, you have every right to measure
the vendor's performance and hold them accountable for non-performance.
The vendor will determine what it will cost to meet your terms. The
process is negotiation.


Patrick Cunningham, CRM
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"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

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