SPS, formerly Cleardata, surveyed 100 UK businesses about their document management practices and uncovered that 44% of businesses are using offsite storage lock-ups or self-storage facilities.
This can often be due to companies suddenly needing to move archives offsite, e.g. to provide more office space for additional staff, an annual office clear-out of archived documents, or perhaps an office move. Although lockups may appeal due to low monthly costs, organisations need to review the full risks and challenges.
Risks
Security – Shared access means multiple staff have access to different types of confidential documents. Do you keep an audit of who’s accessing your information?
Misfiled or lost information – If you don’t keep a record of access or retrievals, you’re at risk of losing valuable data
Compliance – Are you meeting GDPR requirements? You may need to access information quickly to respond to a request for information. If documents are not managed efficiently, it may be difficult to respond to requests in a timely manner
Flood Risk – documents stored in lockups can become damp
Higher Costs – If you’re not managing destruction dates efficiently, you’re probably keeping records for longer than necessary, which will ultimately mean higher storage costs
Challenges
High staff costs – How much time are your staff spending travelling per week to access and retrieve documents?
Physical Access – Doors can be heavy for staff to contend with
Management – It can be difficult to access documents stored at the back of a lock-up. Are your archives being managed efficiently?
Managed Archive Storage
Storing documents in a managed archive storage facility can reduce your annual costs, improve compliance and records management. Benefits and features include:-
Reduce wasted travelling time through digital file retrieval. Request archives via our online solution and documents will be retrieved, scanned and returned straight to your desktop
Manage archives online – secure portal providing a statement of your records stored offsite. Manage authorised users, retention periods, request collections, retrieval and destruction, order more archive boxes and provide regular management reports for your archives
Limit document access to authorised staff only for specific boxes/information
Receive a full audit trail – any physical access/retrieval recorded by user, date and time
Managed destruction dates enabling businesses to only keep information for the required time
Secure destruction services available
For further details about how SPS, formerly Cleardata, can help with managed archive storage, contact our team on 0800 046 8081.