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Information Management Business

The information that firms have is strategic asset, and they would find it difficult or impossible to operate without this information. Having the ‘correct' information in the correct time is important for a firm to carry out its duties in an efficient and effective way. Records supply information for organisational to help them plane and make decision. Records Management (RM) is a thus critical area of information management and it is thus not surprising that there are international standards and guidelines designed to assist firms in developing and implementing standard records management policies and procedures (Cimtech Ltd, 2001).

The objective of RM is to support the work of the organisation by improving the management of information and enabling a more efficient and effective movement of information internal and external. This report outlines the business benefits of implementing a Records Management strategy. The report concludes by recommending storage options for the firm and a strategic plan outlining key actions that should be taken by the firm in the next 12 months.

2.0 The Strategic and Operational Benefits of Records Management

Records Management (RM) is defined as a process for the systematic management of all a firm's records and the information that they contain (Shepherd and Yeo, 2003). Usually records are kept in paper form, but are now increasingly kept in electronically. Effective RM consists of controlling records through the records' lifecycle - from creation through to final disposition.

Today, RM is a strategic necessity for all firms as it (1) enables them to comply with legal and regulatory obligations, (2) supports core functions, and (3) is the basis for effective and accountable administration. Other strategic benefits include (Shepherd and Yeo, 2003, Cimtech Ltd, 2001):

• Ensuring continuity, regardless of personnel or organisational change, by minimising the loss of knowledge,

• Providing the primary or secondary evidence of a transaction or business process needed for legal purposes,

• Full disaster recovery,

• Improved knowledge management,

• Improved management information,

• Improved team working and collaboration, and

• More efficient exploitation of corporate information assets.

At the operational/tactical level, tangible benefits include (Shepherd and Yeo, 2003, Cimtech Ltd, 2001):

• Ensures that personnel have complete, accurate, and reliable information essential to decision-making and operations, thus improving staff productivity,

• Facilitating timely access and retrieval of records through the application of file classification schemes,

• Reducing the costs of records storage through the scheduling and routine purging of records that are no longer useful,

• Space saving brought about by installing digital systems,

• Ability to find and share information easily, both internally and externally,

• Reduced cost through removing duplicate information, and

• Reduction in the risk of losing information and the consequential cost of replacing it.

3.0Records Management Procedures

This section describes three areas important to RM: document and record capture methods, the retention schedule, and the corporate file plan.

3.1Document and Record Capture Methods

The Firm can choose storing record in paper form, or in electronic form. The form will depend on whether the record is active or achieved and the retention period. Often, paper records are converted to other media to reduce storage costs, increase efficiency, and improve security. When done to prescribed standards, imaging programme can make high quality reproductions of print records which can replace the original document, and meet all legal, fiscal and operational requirements. The firm can make electronic reproductions or the production of photographic (microforms) reproductions form paper documents, or both.

The records that are to be stored permanently need to be handled and stored specially if they are to be preserved. It is important to understand that the life expectancy of electronic storage media, while, is not indefinite. This means that permanent records that only exist electronically (CDs, magnetic tape, floppy disks, hard drives, etc.) can be rendered inaccessible by hardware and software obsolescence and media decay unless the images are regularly migrated to upgraded hardware and software technologies.

The cost of this process can expensive, and therefore it is recommended that electronic images be written to a secure medium such as microfilm for long-term storage.

3.2Retention Schedules

The retention period is that period of time, varying from a few months to indefinitely, during which a record has to be maintained by a firm. The retention period is usually determined by legal, regulatory, or business compliance, business needs, and general knowledge as to how long records should be kept.

of retention (Shepherd and Yeo, 2003). The retention period may be:

• A fixed number of years from creation, or

• The life of the transaction plus a fixed period of years.

The retention schedule thus establishes the minimum retention periods and authorises dispositions of records. It is strongly recommended that firms determine the disposal status of their records at or before creation which will enable the most appropriate and efficient RM strategy to be adopted from the earliest possible point in the recordkeeping process (Public Record Office, 1999). The retention periods specified in the schedule are applicable to documents in all formats and need to be applied consistently no matter whether the information is held manually or electronically.

The ongoing development of the retention schedule is part of the commitment to good record keeping in any firm. The schedule needs to be always updated so it can provide consistent guidance on how long records of the organisation should be retained. Retention schedules should be designed to ensure that records are retained as long as needed, and they have to be aware of Data Protection Act 1998. A sample retention schedule is presented in Appendix 2.

3.3The Corporate File Plan

The file plan is the primary RM planning document. Record may start as active documents, which are in use and still being updates. When an active document becomes a record, it is moved or copied to a storage area (physical or electronic), and it is assigned a retention period. At the end of the retention period, the record is either disposed of or moved to an archive for safekeeping.

Although file plans can differ across firms, they typically have the following functions.

• Describe the kinds of items the firm defines are records.

• Describe the broader category of records to which the items belong.

• Indicate where records are stored.

• Describe retention periods for records.

• Delineate who is responsible for managing the various types of records.

Generally, to determine what are records in the firm, it is necessary to:

• Understand the firm's legal obligations and business needs,

• Analyse active document usage,

• Make a list of the types of active document that should become records, and

• Categorise the records.

At the end of this, the firm needs to complete the file plan by defining retention periods for each record category indicating how to dispose of records when their retention periods have expired, and providing other information as necessary. A sample file plan is presented in Appendix 3.

4.0Recommendations for Storage Options

The firm has three options for storage its records:

• Onsite, that is, the same location as the office but this tends to take up expensive office space. In this case, staffs are responsible for maintaining all records regardless of whether they are active, inactive, or permanent. Records stored onsite should be those that are active

• The firm can choose an offsitecompany which can be responsible for creating a facility at a less expensive location. This firm is still responsible for ensuring the safety of the records and making sure that records retrieval mechanisms are in place. Records stored offsite are those not regularly required for business purposes (inactive).

• The firm can also use commercial storage, in which case all issues related to the storage, retrieval, and accession of records are dealt with by a third party.

This classification related more readily to the manual storage of records (paper-based or micrographs). With regards to electronic records, there are three storage options:

• Records stored online are in stored so as to make them available for immediate retrieval and access, such as on computer servers. Generally, active records are stored online.

• Records stored offline are in are not directly accessible through the firm's network and thus needs human intervention to make them accessible. These records are normally usually stored on removable media such CD or DVD. These records are usually inactive records.

• Records which are stored ‘nearline' are contained on removable electronic storage media but remain relatively accessible through automated systems connected to the firm's network, although, these records are considered to be offline. 

Generally, electronic records will begin life online. As the immediate business need to refer to them diminishes, they are moved to either nearline or offline storage, depending on its continued use in the business. Similarly, most physical records will begin as active documents and so be stored online. However, physical records are not moved offsite or into commercial storage. Often this happens because there is no proper RM plan in place.

The offsite archive should be developed to accommodate documents which are to be kept permanently but which are not required for day-to-day business purposes. As shown in the sample retention plan in Appendix 3, many of the record which surveyors have need to be kept permanently, often for legal purposes. This means that a lot of expensive office space can be freed up by storing physical records offsite. Similarly, electronic documents which are stored offline can also be stored offsite. Whether offsite storage run by the firm or by a third party depends on the firm's requirements and resources.

5.0Strategic Plan

In the next 12 months, the firm will have to undertake several projects if it intends to implements a proper RM system. In this section, the elements to be undertaken in the next year are described in some detail.

5.1Preliminary Investigation

To begin the process, the firm has to conduct a preliminary investigation of current policies, procedures and systems. The present RM system needs to be assessed alongside other IT applications and systems as well as RM recommended guidelines. The outcome should be a general appreciation of the firm's current recordkeeping strengths and weaknesses and the benefits a proper RM system could bring.

5.2Analysis of Business Activity

The second stage is an analysis of the firm's activities. The key steps are:

• Collect information and analyse the work performed by the firm,

• Identify and record the firm's business functions, activities and transactions, and

• Create a business classification scheme, founded on a hierarchy of business functions, activities, and transactions.

This is a resource-intensive activity, which will take up a lot of time. It also highlights the need to clearly define the scope of the project and the information gathering approach being use. The majority of the firm needs to be reviewed if the objective is to develop an exhaustive business classification scheme.

5.3Identification of Requirements for Record Keeping

After the development of the business classification scheme, the firm has to identify its requirements for record keeping by:

• Identifying the regulatory, business, and other requirements for record keeping,

• Recording these identified requirements in way that they can be easily referenced, and

• Determining and recording which of the identified requirements will be met.

5.4Survey of Existing Records Management Systems

For all documents and RM systems, data needs to the gathered on current practices such as (Cimtech Ltd, 2007):

• How they are captured/created,

• How they are indexed/organised/managed,

• What security and access controls are provided,

• How they are routed/distributed across the firm,

• How they are retrieved and viewed and copied/printed,

• Where they are stored, backed-up and archived, and

• How they are reviewed and disposed of.

In addition, the firm needs to review the existing information technology infrastructure including the applications used to create documents and content.

5.5Identification of Strategies to Satisfy Requirements

At the end of the 12 months, the firm should be able to get to the feasibility or options review stage. The various record keeping strategy options available will need to be reviewed before deciding the preferred strategy for the firm. In the next year, the firm will be well poised to move onto the design and implementation of its RM system.

6.0References

Cimtech Ltd. (2007). Managing Information and Documents: The Definitive Guide. Available online at http://www.doconsite.co.uk/ [accessed 01 December 2007].

Shepherd, Elizabeth and Yeo, Geoffrey. (2003). Managing Records: A Handbook of Principles and Practice.  London: Facet.

7.0 Bibliography

Company Content management strategy what Is it, and Why Do You Need One?

. Available online at http://www.contentcompany.biz/articles/content_mgmt_strategy.html

[Accessed 1st December 2007].

Content and Knowledge Management First Steps. Available online at

http://www.bitpipe.com/data/web/bp/contmgmt/content_tutorial.jsp

[Accessed 1st December 2007].

In-Form Consult. (2004). Information Management Strategy. Available online at http://www.dlmforum.typepad.com/Information_Management_Strategyv1.pdf [Accessed o1 December 2007].

Gibbons, Paul and Shenton, Caroline, (2003). Implementing a records management

strategy for the UK parliament: the experience of using keyword AAA. Journal of the Society of Archivists, 24 (2): 141-157.

National Archives of Australia. (n.d.). Records management website. Available at http://www.naa.gov.au/records-management/index.aspx [Accessed o3 December 2007].

Public Record Office. (1999) Management, Appraisal and Preservation of Electronic Records: Volume 2: Procedures. Surrey: Public Record Office. Available online at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/procedures.pdf [Accessed 05 December 2007].

8.0Appendices

8.1Appendix 2: Sample Retention Schedule

8.2Appendix 3: Sample File Plan

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