Do you really understand your record compliance requirements?

The world is creating data at a staggering rate. Research firm IDC predicts that the digital universe will grow to 44 zettabytes of data by 2020. That's equivalent to 44 trillion gigabytes — a 10-fold increase from the amount of data that was created in 2013.¹

However, how much data you're creating is just the start of the story. The bigger concern is really what kind of data you have, how you're saving it and how long you need to store it.

To ensure you have the right protections on the right data, you might decide to just electronically file everything you have; after all, the cost of storage has dropped dramatically in recent years, so it's both technically feasible and affordable to do so — at least for now. But taking that approach is neither sustainable nor smart. The cost of keeping everything, even if it's all in low-cost cloud storage, is an unnecessary line item on the company ledger. Plus, the sheer volume will eventually become unwieldy — if it isn't so already. You'll spend more money than you should just to manage the huge quantities you'll quickly acquire if you decide to archive everything in electronic files forever. And even with that approach, you still might not meet security standards for the data that requires protection.

What you need instead is a thoughtful records retention policy that adheres to the various laws, regulations and best practices that govern how to handle your growing volume of electronic data. Numerous local, state and federal requirements govern your business data, and each one has different rules regarding the records it wants you to keep.

There are also various industry standards and best practices with records compliance recommendations. They all aim to ensure that you handle your digital records properly so you can find and access them when needed while at the same time protecting them as much as possible from unauthorized access or unintentional loss. If records compliance sounds complicated, you're right.