It is obvious that the best way to ensure compliance with regulations seeking to curb business disasters such as Enron is to develop a process based on a strong system developed from sound policies, procedures and principles. But what are the components?
Policies, procedures and principles should stem from four factors:
* Executives should first ascertain whether or not a records retention policy is already in place for physical documents, ensuring they do not reinvent the wheel and adhere to existing policy.
* Senior staff from multiple disciplines must be involved to ensure all documents, regardless of media are included.
* It is imperative to determine which records must be retained because of the plethora of digital documents currently employed by businesses.
* Validation of the steps taken to ensure records retention is paramount, as in a clearly defined authentication process.
Further to this, there are 10 steps companies should employ to ensure the records retention programme is a success in meeting business goals and regulatory requirements:
1. Records policies must be updated to fit company, operations and technology changes.
2. The retention schedule must be based on regulatory and corporate governance requirements to avoid legal hassles.
3. Because laws change the schedule should be regularly updated.
4. A consistent policy aligned with broader records retention imperatives must be applied throughout the organisation.
5. All forms of physical and digital media need to fall under the records retention programme.
6. Assign an executive champion to the programme that can drive the process from the board level down.
7. An automated system must underpin the process so it can proactively destroy records at the appropriate time.
8. Employees must be trained according to records retention procedures, otherwise the programme falls flat and the investment is wasted.
9. Regular audits and reviews must be performed on all components of the process to ensure it remains current.
10. The system needs to be able to retain records that are pertinent to legal processes, even if they are "outdated" according to standard legislation.
IT executives, particularly, are on the line when it comes to records retention programmes.
Paul Mullon, marketing director, Metrofile
IT executives, particularly, are on the line when it comes to records retention programmes. With analysts expecting data and information storage levels to rise at an annual 50% to 70%, existing problems will only be exacerbated as time passes - further incentive to ensure that an effective records retention programme is established and implemented as soon as possible.
Global businesses face potentially more challenges as the same regulations are interpreted differently in different regions, and therefore require different processes that must still form part of an integrated whole.
Ensuring compliance and effective records retention is a process not only of gathering correct regulation information, but also effective organisation of it. Executives who wait for information to be gathered by a variety of company departments risk finding themselves and their companies at a disadvantage.
Many companies are meeting this challenge as an opportunity to realise the benefits of information lifecycle management. Designing and deploying the process described above is one of the first and most critical steps in achieving this.
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