George Elish, former President of NRC is now working with Business Records Management in Pittsburgh. “We are fortunate to be working with George on acquisition opportunities within the industry.” said Steve Wright, President of the company. Good luck in your new role George.
Harvey Schwartz, owner of Capitol Records Management Center in Providence, Rhode Island is working with Michael Gold and a strong group of investors in order to expand the company exponentially. This new group is looking to purchase record centers throughout the country. Any new acquisitions in the New England, New York, New Jersey market areas will fall under the Capitol brand name, while all others will fall under the Nova Records Management name. Harvey is pretty excited about where things are going with this new venture.
A recent Yahoo! Small Business survey, conducted by Harris Interactive, shows that many small business owners believe an online presence is important, as is leveraging the Internet. In a survey of over 1,000 small business owners, the following activities were listed as the most beneficial to the growth of their company, in order of importance:
1. Having or establishing an online presence (35%)
Q. Does your website make you like like a professional services form or a rinky dink storage shed?
2. Having or obtaining dedicated business email (30%):
If you are still using an AOL, Hotmail, MSN or records@ispcompany.com address, you look like a rookie.
3. Increasing online advertising (30%) Q: Are you doing search optimization? Adwords? Paid placement? Banners? Email advertising?
4. Hiring more employees (19%)
Wouldn’t that be a great benefit?
In many ways the Internet is the great equalizer. It levels the playing field for small businesses to compete with the big guys. It can make a small business look big. It is a 24/7 marketing arm. It can open up markets that small businesses previously could only have dreamed about.
So what are you doing about it?
Chatted with Miro Seperic of Recycle America Alliance yesterday. Here are his current observations and thoughts on resale of baled paper.
“Sorted office waste/paper is hot right now. Subject to location fluctuations, the average industry prices are in the $120 - $130 per ton range. I think that the market will improve another $10-$15 a ton during the summer. The tissue business, where the bulk of the paper we bale is directed is very busy. Currently the mills producing these products have orders into October of this year. The other percentage of baled paper goes into the bleached pulp area to be made into recycled paper. That industry too is busy with an expected new mill coming on board in the next year or so. All very positive signs for the time being.
White ledger and CPO grades hold their own in the $185-$190 per ton range with no significant change in sight.”
If you want more information give Miro a call at 416.622.3800. Or send him an email by clicking this link.
Perm-A-Store announced a new addition to its line-up specifically for removable hard drives.
“The market for Removable Hard Drives is growing steadily and our customers are looking for a safe way to transport and store their data in this format. We’re committed to developing Turtle cases that protect critical data in all the new and emerging storage products that our customers are utilizing, ” commented Ken Schneider, CEO.
The product introduction includes three new Turtle cases:
RHD Custom - 2
Turtle case built with customer specified slot dimensions, (provided in advance) to hold two Removable Hard Drives.
RHD Multi - 2
Turtle case designed with variable slots which are configured at the customer site to hold two Removable Hard Drives/Formats.
RHD - 5
A rugged container designed with variable slots which can hold five Removable Hard Drives of one or more form factors.
For further information on the RHD Turtles and other Turtle data products, visit the Perm-A-Store website or call them at 1.800.366.7535.
Gary Tobiczyk, President & Founder of IMA Center responds to the “Cost of Records Management” post from a few days ago.
It is nearly impossible to compute the cost, expense or profit realized from one company’s records program to another by comparing one company to another regardless of the industry. Meaning each situation is different but you can use the same consultative template. A solution can never be supplied without first defining what the problem(s) is.
Program cost or expense depends upon many factors. Not least of which is a comparison between a poorly run program with no support to a well managed program with the correct amount of support. The idea in business is to show a ROI outlined in the over-all company’s, division’s, or department’s goals and objectives for both the short and long term.
If there is only one thing I learned in all the deals I have ever been on where you were able to elevate the importance of records and information management to the level that an outsourcing company could sell a decision maker not necessarily a technical principal or coach, on outsourcing even a portion of their records, it has been hard dollar (bottom-line) savings. Every company or organization has space, people and assets. Assets are the information our industry helps to store, manage and secure in a cost effective manner. You need to show personnel and space savings then pile on the opportunity cost savings and value i.e. successful audits less write offs etc etc depending on the industry.
To quantify an improvement to the program is icing on the cake. Quantifying what lost documents may cost or have cost the organization can be huge. Quantifying time delays in getting information into the hands of decision makers and/or what inaccuracies or incomplete information has cost a company or organization can be quantified and can be enormous by comparison to space and the labor costs saved.
Unless an outsourcing company has taken over the management of an entire program or at least the life cycle of an entire record category (regardless of the type of media), there can not be total accountability nor total control by either party. This makes it even more important for the vendor and the company to work closer with one another to provide the best and most cost effective solution.
We can be an extension of their business and provide flexibility with savings and no degradation in the quality of their program and that is a key selling message.
Think about most “important” buying decisions in your own personal life. You do your own due diligence utilizing a myriad of different tools or information provided to you from different sources i.e. Consumer
reports, the internet, word of mouth, the company’s product information, etc. In the end, you make a decision based upon your best judgment and the information you gathered or that was presented to you. If there was a delay or an inaccuracy in the information that you gathered or that which was presented to you, then you stand a better chance of making an un-informed decision, a bad decision. People will do more to avoid making a bad decision then making the “best” decision. Think of every “bad” decision you ever made when you purchased a product or service in your personal or professional life. I would be willing to bet that you could blame that “bad” decision on misinformation, incomplete information and/or delayed information.You have to demonstrate to a prospect that your solution saves them money, does it better and does it faster. Otherwise, do not bother trying to sell them. What we provide is paramount to the success of most every company we touch.
It is difficult for a Records Manager to quantify value add because their decision makers are usually judged by something that can be quantified and measured. I feel RIM professionals have the opportunity of not only saving a company or organization enormous amounts of money each year but I strongly feel that a RIM professional can contribute even greater returns by being an indirect revenue producer to an organization or
company. They just go about “selling” themselves, in most cases improperly. They have to bring business value to an organization. It is up to the RIM industry professional to show them the way and work with them.
A great cartoon at Glasbergen.com