It has been interesting to watch the progressions of titles within the records management community:  Records Manager, Knowledge Manager, Information Manager, Information Governance Manager and probably soon E-Records Manager or E-Discovery Manager.

Viewing trends over an extended period of time  (31 years in the Media Vaulting and Vital Records Vaulting Arena ) it is interesting to see which events really track the Industry.

Only a short time ago (1980)  there were Pierce-Leahy, Iron Mountain, RECALL, ARCUS and about 250 to 300 moving and storage companies that evolved into records centers.

Iron Mountain bought out Pierce-Leahy and ARCUS, and, for a period of time it seemed they were about to monopolize the box storage business and the tape storage industry.  But the Moving and Storage guys evolved and became much more professional; and the offsite storage and media storage industry blossomed. These business owners saw opportunities to offer strong service level businesses (SLA) in hundreds and hundreds of markets.  Soon there were over a 1,000 offsite storage companies.

Then some of the storage companies started using Hostage Fees to hold clients, the Service based companies had no choice but to buy out the Hostage Fee and add it to the contract if they wanted to accommodate a client who wanted to change vendors.  The smaller companies had to add the Hostage Fees Clauses to their accounts or they became vulnerable to predatory pricing. During this time Records Managers evolved by changing their titles; but few if any of the titles took the time to structure contracts to eliminate Hostage Fees. 

Now the storage industry is contracting again, as Wall Steet Investors see these boxes as just another form of equity.  They now own your box records; not the corporation creating the records. They in essence put a Mortgage on property your company owns??

In the meantime the Chief Information Officer and the IT Manager have stayed content with their titles; but they make sure Legal reviews all contracts, and so far have resisted Hostage Fees. These managers view controlling their media; which is now considered as records as Mission Critical. Not only is their Business Continuity hinging on these computer tapes but the Courts invested in them special status.  And E-Discovery is all about reviewing these important digital records.

IBM, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Dell, HO and many others are out there offering the Cloud.  Ironically they too claim title to the content they store; but they will give you back your content without any Hostage Fees.

Once again the box storage industry is moving through a consolidation. The people who own your records now are not even in the records management industry!  They are just money managers, hedge fund guys and other Wall Street players.  They could care less about the records, they just want the boxes anchored with Hostage Fees.

Some day the past mortem will demonstrate how they viewed the paper in those boxes as possessing special value when the paper’s content was actually created on an e-records platform and the paper was expendable.  Paper is evolving to become a medium much like an Etch-A-Sketch® which is never intended to be a permanent and vital record. E-signatures and other technologies coupled with “searchability” make records the record of the present and future.

So corporations seeing the true disadvantage of paper documents; (e.g., investors with no knowledge of the value of the records content, now control them.)  are moving towards electronic records and Cloud storage.  Tape storage is still the ultimate for what is perceived as the Disaster Recovery model. But the interesting phenomena is Computer Tapes secured in Media Vaults are moving towards Vital Records status. Savvy states like Massachusetts, Connecticut, Washington, Texas and about five others have developed strategies to protect their computer media as a Vital Record. Some states protect their entire 

Given these trends, do you predict that the “Big Data” companies will start buying up Offsite Records Storage companies to buy the relationships to further feed their Cloud; or, will they see the paper as a declining asset like a house in a declining neighborhood?  After all, the retention period on the paper in a box has declined from an average life of 16 years on a shelf, to 10 years back in 2000, to 7 years average in 2010 and indications are that 3 years will soon be the desired period to maintain paper as a form of record.  The “I hate paper” model is winning!

E-Discovery is the key for the records manager strategically planning their future so they are not linked to the paper. The key is managing that which you can control. The Hostage Fee will eventually destroy or greatly damage the offsite records storage business because it makes such fools of the clients. An entire Industry has been turned into bullies and Society does not like bullies!   These clients seek new models which they can control their own content. The fact that the Courts view the E-Records as the most vital documents to control and map will reinforce this trend.

Knowing the future……. How will you position yourself?

Hugh Smith
FIRELOCK Fireproof Modular Vaults
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(610)  756-4440    Fax (610)  756-4134
WWW.FIRELOCK.COM

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