Records Management: Margin Making & Mickey Taking | News

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Amongst professional services firms’ costs, document storage and records management have often been considered a burdensome but necessary expense.

Despite ERA’s Legal & Professional Services team shining a light into the deepest recesses of the industry for nearly a decade, some recent trends give us cause for concern.

Please Release Me

The records management industry has long been synonymous with “hostage pricing” via the application of onerous Permanent Withdrawal or Exit Charges to clients.

Given the continuing market consolidation – exemplified by AIM-listed Restore’s acquisition of TNT’s records management business this week – we’re experiencing a hardening of suppliers’ positions on Exit Charges as they seek to retain market share.

Interestingly, we’re also witnessing the emergence of “hostage pricing” for data. Often such charges are buried deep within contracts or barely mentioned at all.

Clearly, this highlights the need to ensure contracts are drafted to cater for all eventualities as the use of services migrates from physical storage and retrieval to digital.

GDPR Smoke & Mirrors

Just as the Millennium Bug was a business opportunity for providers of “services” of dubious value, we’re experiencing an increasing incidence of “GDPR Charges” being applied to clients’ invoices.

This is usually a small but monthly charge for which there is no justification whatsoever.

Similarly, too many clients are still paying licence fees for access to online portals to manage their archives.

Relieving The Afflicted

Fortunately ERA’s Legal & Professional Services team is able to address the vast majority of contractual, tariff and account management issues endured by our clients. Savings are generally in the region of 30-55%, new contracts are robust and transparent with “hostage pricing” written out and issues such as re-indexing and re-boxing can be easily dealt with.

ERA’s Legal and Professional Services Team comprises Peter Lee, a former Finance Director with the Records Management Division of Hays plc. Peter is supported in the scoping and reporting process by Jason Adderley, a leading ERA Account Manager working predominantly with legal and professional services organisations.

Article by: Jason Adderley

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