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Iron Mountain: Toward a Paperless Office
February 18, 2008
Boston-based information storage provider Iron Mountain last month unveiled a data repository that it says provides its clients with hosted storage and rapid access to digital copies of their physical records.
The product, Digital Record Center, lets users retrieve stored documents from a Web browser, preview document thumbnails, and download, print and forward files using streaming technology. It also features security safeguards, encrypted data transmission, user-access control, and around-the-clock monitoring of storage facilities. IBM Corp.'s Content Manager OnDemand software powers the system.
"We've long helped our clients manage their physical records and convert these paper documents to digital files," said Chris Churchill, VP of document management solutions at Iron Mountain. "Now, with the Digital Record Center for images, we're offering them a cost-effective repository for access to those digital files. By integrating these services, we offer customers a comprehensive, single-source solution for using their information and ensuring its security."
The new offering "is for organizations that really want to get better access," said Kenneth Chin, research VP at Gartner. "If you are talking about traditional documents, you will probably not tap into this, because of cost. But for things like invoices, HR documents and high-risk legal discovery requests, that is where the value is."
Legal discovery is a major driver of digital imaging, Chin noted. It "forces organizations to do an inventory of all their systems and content that gets created."
He called the Digital Record Center an ideal extension for Iron Mountain because the company is "already storing your paper. They are looking to add additional revenue by scanning what they store already, and grow the revenue stream from existing customers by providing additional services." Iron Mountain has 250 financial services customers.
Competitors include Poway, Calif.-based Anacomp and Affiliated Computer Services in Dallas; mom-and-pop service bureaus that also do imaging; and Malvern, Pa.-based Ikon Office Solutions and Xerox Global Services, which provide outsourced digital record storage.
There is plenty of room for growth in the digital storage space, according to Masha Khmartseva, senior analyst with Palo Alto, Calif.-based Radicati Group. Many potential customers have not yet implemented archiving, she explained, so the industry is "still at the stage where most companies just need to implement archiving with regular simple messages."
Most financial services firms have implemented an archiving solution of some kind, she added. "The rest of the companies--in industries not heavily regulated by the government--are becoming more aware of these solutions, but it takes time for them to realize the need and to deploy them. We will see a lot of archiving deployments from non-regulated companies over the next two years."
Iron Mountain says that by making digital copies available, the Digital Record Center "can better enable employees to use and share information, regardless of its format or location."
"This allows our customers to deal with a single vendor, resulting in improved chain of custody and better coordination between each stage in the life cycle," said Churchill. "Combined with our archival storage and shredding, we can truly provide a cradle-to-grave solution."
More customers are asking Iron Mountain for the ability to manage their documents earlier, Churchill added. In the past, customers needed to store data at the end of its life cycle for legal and compliance purposes. Now "we can manage the physical document during its active phase, convert it, then put it into our hosted archives to provide electronic access."
