Records Management Market Spotlight: TOWER Software
Do the Federal Rules of Civil Procedures (FRCP) require a new approach to Records Management?
We all know by now that under the new FRCP everything is discoverable, whether it has been declared a record or not. Does this mean that records management needs to change its approach to become more all-encompassing?
It doesn’t if you confuse records management with retention management that applies only to finalized documents. However, if you understand records management as the discipline that ensures the weight of evidence of information, then this has to apply to all information, regardless of its declaration status.
This is where the concept of the Records Continuum comes to the fore. This approach distinguishes itself from the widely used Life Cycle approach, which treats each stage in the life of information as a separate problem, with separate solutions. The Continuum approach involves the records management input across all business processes, from the creation and management of active information to its destruction. This approach allows a consistent regime of classification, retention, security and access policies to be applied, without having to plan for the migration of information from one life cycle stage to the next.
The continuum approach is used successfully in countries like Canada and Australia. If we start adopting it here in the USA we will find that Records Management suddenly becomes a corporate competency, ingrained in all business processes, rather than a separate discipline.
TOWER Software 12012 Sunset Hills Road
Two Discovery Square, Suite 510
Reston, VA 20190
Phone: 800.255.9914 or 703.476.4203
Fax: 703.437.9006
Contact: na@towersoft.com
Web: www.towersoft.com
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