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Note: Legal information is not legal advice. Contoural provides information pertaining to business, compliance, and litigation trends and issues for educational and planning purposes. Contoural and its consultants do not provide legal advice. Readers should consult with competent legal counsel.
Balancing the Costs and Risks of Electronic Records Retention Policies
June 2004
Legal, regulatory and business requirements are highlighting the
need to retain more documents, and to keep them for longer periods.
However, many IT organizations are concerned about the cost of storing
large archives of electronic records. This white paper illustrates
alternative strategies that can meet requirements with modest IT
costs, whille reducing the much larger costs and risks of compliance
failure.
Earlier white papers recommend that organizations retain more data,
rather than less, and keep it for longer retention periods. This
white paper addresses an objection that some IT managers will raise
when presented with this policy recommendation: the belief that
longer retention periods will greatly increase information technology
costs, and that the organization cannot afford to adopt the recommended
strategy.
By comparing the costs and benefits of alternative retention technologies,
this paper demonstrates that an organization can meet the minimum
retention requirements with very little information (IT) cost impact,
if such a strategy represents the appropriate balance of near-term
and long-term costs and benefits. It also shows that, for many firms,
an investment in intelligent archiving infrastructure can provide
near-term IT cost reductions and productivity benefits, in addition
to improved compliance and stronger litigation defense. Each organization
must review the requirements, assess the risks, and adopt an appropriate
set of policies, practices and IT solutions.
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White Paper
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