As technology and innovation continue to progress, companies have to adapt how they manage their business, clients, and day-to-day workflow to stay with the curve. The modernization of business cannot be ignored, but the question is, why should records management modernize with it? And if so, how?
The Historical Approach to Records Management
Records management has been a “what if” conversation for decades, playing defense when it comes to compliance and potential regulatory risk. The ugly truth is that many records departments stay on the sidelines – both financially and operationally- because the potential ramifications are just that: potential. Every once in a while, a company is hit with a massive penalty for failing to comply with regulatory policies. Although these penalties come with extensive financial and reputation consequences, the incidences were infrequent at the time. As a result, many companies turn a blind eye and hang on to the belief that it would never happen to them. The risk was low and wasn’t worth the cost of adapting their current approach to records management.
The unfortunate reality is that these fines happen more often than most believe, and the fact that your company could be charged with non-compliance is an actual reality.
Records Management Today
Fast forward to today, and the growth of companies fined continues to grow. Regardless of your industry, compliance and regulatory processes are being implemented to protect people’s privacy and security.
Here are a few well know regulations your company may encounter:
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
- California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
- Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
- Data Subject Access Request (DSAR)
- Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
As companies become more dependent on technology, the need for these regulations also grows as well as the percentage of policies enforced. The need for a proactive approach to records management can’t be ignored.
Why Records Management?
Why records management? Because if not careful, the fines and penalties associated with violating these privacy regulations have the potential to make a significant dent in your company’s net value if not bankrupt it.
Gartner analysts predict that by 2023, 65% of the world’s population will have its personal information covered under modern privacy regulations, up from 10% today.*
The largest GDPR fines in 2020 will pale compared to what is to come if companies do not take the initiative to decrease their compliance risk. The risk is now so significant that many companies are considering what it will take to adapt their current approach to records management.
How to Apply Modern Records Management?
The upside is that there are increasing benefits to applying records management that go beyond avoiding the looming fees when a company fails to comply with regulations.
For many companies, however, it can feel like a daunting task with changing a company’s mindset on change management, information architecture, aligning security policies, and tying legacy records programs with modernized technology systems and processes.
Luckily, there are companies in the market to help you take control of your information. Gimmal can solve an organization’s information governance issues from beginning to end. Through analyzing your organization’s systems to identify what is truly a “record”, to migrating legacy systems to modernized systems, to finally managing your physical and electronic systems in-place, Gimmal has a solution that can fit your question.
To learn more about how to create an effective information governance strategy in this blog post.
Hear from your peers at Fruit of the Loom on how they successfully streamlined their records management strategy in this free on-demand webinar.
*Gartner, The State of Privacy and Personal Data Protection, 2020-2022 Published 26 August 2020