Metrofile, SA`s leading records management company, has announced that it has topped the 4 million containers at its 17 national centres, storing an estimated 14 billion pieces of paper.
Paul Mullon, marketing director at Metrofile, attributes the ongoing growth in the number of containers stored to good corporate governance on the part of its clients.
"Companies want to keep paper records in addition to electronic records. Although electronic records retention is admittedly a faster growing market than paper records retention, the latter is operating from a far larger installed base," says Mullon.
The volume of containers stored at Metrofile is growing at an average of 15% a year. It went from 2.5 million boxes in January 1999 to 3 million in July 2000, and over 4 million boxes early this year.
Disaster recovery and risk management are primary points for concern in today`s businesses with government`s focus on good corporate governance following auditing debacles such as Enron in the US and the collapse of the World Trade Centre (WTC). Many companies in the WTC had backup tapes storing data offsite, which was used to effectively and quickly recover business data, allowing continued operations. Those companies which did not take adequate precautions by storing paper and electronic records off-site are generally no longer in operation today.
The introduction of legislation such as the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act (FAIS) in SA in 2002, as well as the King II Report on corporate governance, Sarbanes-Oxley, and Basel II, has seen company executives become legally responsible for their company`s compliance with good governance, part of which is effective record-keeping.
"In the last five years or less, corporate governance has been fuelling growth of the records retention market, with companies now storing more paper than in the past as part of their risk management programmes," says Mullon.
Many of the paper records Metrofile stores are also converted into electronic records and stored on hard disks or compact discs, which is cost-effective where high volumes of retrievals are required, but this is typically only the case in the first 12 months the documents are stored.
Thereafter, keeping pace with technology changes and the decrease in the number of retrievals that typically occurs, makes it cheaper to seek alternative storage methods.
One of these is microform, another large component of Metrofile`s business. Microform, which includes technologies such as microfiche and microfilm, becomes viable for companies storing information for longer periods, such as 10 years or more, and where there are fewer document retrievals.
Documents stored electronically or in microform are processed at conversion centres around the country, where Metrofile has the capacity to process over 70 million images monthly.
While most US companies believe that they will not withstand a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into company practices due to poor records management solutions, South African companies appear to be taking no chances if the number of records stored with Metrofile is the gauge.
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Metrofile is the South African market leader in the management of business documents, and is committed to help customers reduce costs and improve productivity in processes that are centred on documents and corporate records.
All companies have a combination of paper and electronic documents, and are forced by law and customer requirements to secure the availability of the documents for the duration of their lifecycle. For most organisations, the volume of documents is growing at an exponential rate, and is becoming increasingly difficult to manage.
Metrofile is uniquely positioned to provide consulting and implementation of full lifecycle paper and electronic records management solutions from storage and conversion through to destruction.
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