I will offer a couple of quick observations on these two topics.
1) M&A records are an area where Records Managers need to take the
initiative, almost as a defense tactic to ward off problems for themselves
in the future. RMs have to get involved early or pay the price later when
management (unbelievably!) will expect the RM to understand the situation
and help with a big problem (lost M&A records) that could have been
minimized with some preparation and involvement of RM.
Very briefly, M&A records have many of the same challenges as other records
with these additional drivers - a) the people in the departments related to
the M&A effort (including legal) see the records as "theirs" until they want
to dump them after the activity is over, and b) the records are often owned
by more than one company - the company to be acquired and eventually the
acquiring company as well. Throw into the mix divergent computer
infrastructure and data formats, and you typically have a prescription for
lost records. These lost records can easily call into question the reason
for the acquisition or merger, especially if they are related to company
financial well-being or intellectual property. Read the report. It's free.
http://armaedfoundation.org/2005researchprojects.html
2) Any outsourced functions should be accompanied by a service level
agreement (SLA) that describes not only the services to be performed, but
also the respective information and records responsibilities of all parties.
Unless it is clearly stated in an SLA who owns records and data, there will
be responsibility confusion and probably litigation after any data loss or
disaster. Remember that in these cases, the information is often lost
without any compensation - a) if your media like a CD-ROM dies, the media
company will give you another CD, but feels no responsibility to compensate
you for the value of the data. b) If an off-site records center burns down,
you can expect the off-site records storage vendor to try to not compensate
you for the informational value of the records you lost. For the same
reason, if you outsource e-mail services or business applications, the
vendor will try to not compensate you for lost information - unless you make
records management according to your own policies and procedures a part of
the original service level agreement.
Records managers must take the initiative to be involved in either of these
situations.
John
********************************
John T. Phillips
BS, MSLS, CRM, CDIA, FAI
Information Technology Decisions
www.infotechdecisions.com
865-966-9413
-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Peter Kurilecz
Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 11:57 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: M&A projects & Records of outsourced services
On 10/11/07, Manning, Patricia L (Patti) <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> John Phillips presented at the ARMA conference in Chicago on mergers and
acquisitions. He had excellent handouts and a checklist detailing the role
of RM. Let me know if you cannot access it and I will forward it to you. I
believe it was a Foundation project.
here is the link to the project report
http://armaedfoundation.org/2005researchprojects.html
--
Peter Kurilecz CRM CA
Richmond, Va
List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance
To unsubscribe from this list, click the below link. If not already present,
place UNSUBSCRIBE RECMGMT-L or UNSUB RECMGMT-L in the body of the message.
mailto:[log in to unmask]
List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance
To unsubscribe from this list, click the below link. If not already present, place UNSUBSCRIBE RECMGMT-L or UNSUB RECMGMT-L in the body of the message.
mailto:[log in to unmask]
|
