The most popular and comprehensive Open Source ECM platform
Let us know more
Paper-based Records Management is slow to Change
One interesting twist stands out from a recent AIIM report that shows the results of a survey made among 741 end users involved with information management: eRecords Management policies are still lagging when compared to policies in place for dealing with paper records management.
In the AIIM Industry Watch Study report, ‘Compliance: It’s Real, It’s Relevant, and It’s more than Just Records’, 64% of users felt that they understood paper records and the related retention policies and procedures, versus 34% who felt they understood how to deal with electronic records.
Similarly, in the event of litigation, 65% of users felt that they had a clear policy related to paper documents versus 39% when dealing with electronic records. One possible explanation of the skew between paper and digital is the explosion of digital messaging via email and IM and the lack of understanding of how to capture and formally treat these items as records. There is also the issue of volume — the amount of email flowing into and out of companies can be staggering.
Four years have passed now since the adoption of Sarbanes-Oxley and there are still many many companies without a firm handle on dealing with compliance issues. Even in the surveyed group belonging to companies with 1000-10000 employees, more than 50% felt that they had not even begun or are just starting to begin to understand how to address compliance requirements.
Clearly, migrating policies and procedures from those that have grown up around paper to management of digital records is slow in coming, but the payoff in terms of gained efficiencies can be tremendous.
It’s important for any company to determine an appropriate corporate compliance policy that matches both their industry and is unique to their enterprise. Compliance regulations are changing at a rapid pace and it’s important that any policy a company enacts is flexible, and it must be based on both sound business and technical components.
