Known Unknowns: Stepping Into Better Information, Better Decisions, and Better Client Services

By Allan Hartley, Strategic Account Manager

We all have those boxes in the loft. We don’t know what it is in them; we don’t always know who put them there.  But luckily unless they contain our missing library books, we are unlikely to suffer any financial or reputational consequences for our ignorance. 

Sadly, the same is not true at a corporate level. Having a clear and consistent view of what information you are holding onto is essential to ensuring you remain compliant with data regulations, can easily access the right information at the right time, and that you aren’t wasting money, resources and carbon footprint, by keeping things you don’t need. Furthermore, easy access to data is crucial to your relationships with clients and employees and to your business performance.   

But the task can seem overwhelming – good records and inventory management is the silver bullet, so how do you fire it? 

1. Stating the obvious but engaging your senior management throughout, in the corrective actions and the decision process, is essential.  
2. Next, you have to know what you have by conducting a full data and information audit. This allows you to destroy what you don’t need or shouldn’t have any more, reducing risk and duplication.  
3. Investing in decent information management technology makes it faster and easier for employees to retrieve files, which improves the customer experience.  
4. The right technology will also ensure good data governance and compliance, allowing businesses to control who can see what, by setting access permissions both for digital records, and physical records stored off-site – creating a comprehensive chain of custody and audit trail so you always know how your records are used and by whom. 
5. Deploying a metadata indexing approach provides essential details about each file, giving context and relevance. This allows you to create a structured, searchable database that can transform the efficiency and effectiveness of your staff and customer experience.  

There is no upside to poor records management – you risk theft or abuse of company information, security breaches, as well as a world of penalties and liabilities. You slow down your response times to customers and you potentially waste resources storing things you neither need nor have a right to retain. In short, any single one of these, let alone a combination of more than one can result in significant harm to your brand reputation, client trust, and customer loyalty. And nobody wants that.