To save space and money, many organisations contract out their business archive storage with a commercial records storage company.Whilst this is often a sound strategy, a frequent and unfortunate consequence is that with the archive out of sight, it is often neglected both in terms of poor organisational controls at the point of submission and in terms of housekeeping once transferred to the archive. Over time this can lead to:
- an unmanaged, exponential and expensive growth of the archive;
- a black-hole of poorly understood, unstructured, meaningless records;
- records being retained beyond their statutory, regulatory, commercial or historical need;
- an extremely costly discovery process in the event of litigation; and
- an increasing belief in the insurmountability of the problem and lack of requisite resources to achieve a resolution.
A well-managed archive should comprise a readily available, valuable resource of records, information, knowledge and historical data that can be used to support an organisation’s ongoing activities and to evidence those of the past.
HBCL Consultants can help clients improve their archive by understanding the client’s business and its specific needs. This enables us to quickly ascertain the value of a client’s archive, determine which records are of genuine continuing value and which are ephemeral so that we can “sift the chaff from the wheat” and -more importantly- unlock valuable information assets to make them readily available.
And because we understand that the records resulting from today’s activities will form the corporate memory of the future, we work with clients not just to help them rectify their existing archive issues but also to
- improve current archive policies, procedures and practices;
- ensure best practice in archive collection and organisation;
- review appraisal mechanisms and retention scheduling;
- advise on suitable archive management software;
- make archives dynamic and relevant; and so
- ensure the continuing viability and usefulness of future archive collections.
