I had a few minutes to spare this sunny Friday (dress-down day) lunchtime, and thought I would just say welcome to the recent spate of new members. The diverstity of your sectors and roles is really good news for us older hands - it suggests that records management is being taken more seriously, by a wider range of organisations. It also means that you will (we hope!) add interesting new topics for discussion - or add new perspectives to old topics. Please don't be shy, and don't be put-off by any lack of response, as activity on this list is sometimes a bit slow and patchy - though always interesting. Concentrate hard enough and you will sense the hundreds of others who are reading Peter's newsletters, but not commenting on related issues - or are there really only ten others out there?!
I was particularly interested in Dave's role, within Compliance rather than RM. I used to work for AstraZeneca pharmaceuticals, and now work in the tobacco industry - both are heavily regulated and litigation-prone. Both have Regulatory Compliance, Quality Assurance, and Legal requirements as key drivers for their record-keeping policies - and, increasingly, for their Enterprise Electronic Doc & RM projects.
Archives and records management (RM) interact with these other key functions - and with Risk Assessment, Business Continuity, Security, IT, Administration, etc - but are usually separate from them. In some (mostly larger) companies, IT, IM, Libraries and Information, and Knowledge Management specialists sometimes have the lead role. Archives often tend to be specialist, and 'owned' by individual functions (eg: Clinical, R&D, IP, HR, etc); and RM usually owns the over-arching records retention Policy and procedures - though Legal, Company Secretary, Regulatory Affairs, Audit, all tend to have a keen interest in 'our' subjects. Does that match other people's experience?
Localised litigation isn't anywhere near so prevalent in Europe as it is in the US, but some of us are impacted by the big law suits (yes, I often bump into the head of legal in the corridor!), and others are in the midst of Freedom of Information (FOI) and Data Protection (DPA) fever, whipped-up by e-Government etc. Sarbanes-Oxley and other legislation are having a ripple effect across the pond - especially in multi-national / global traders - and corporate paranoia is rife thanks to Enron, viruses, etc.
Is all of this getting a teensy bit out of perspective? Have we managed to kick-up another Y2K dust-storm in a T-cup? Probably those paying the penalties don't think so, though most of the 'failures' seem to stem from their corrupt determination to contravene the rules, rather than the lack of rules. But, since all of these factors are working to the RM's advantage, we are certainly not about to complain!
Anyway, hello and welcome, et bon weekend!
Mike Marsh
Corporate Records Management Programme, Director
JT-International, S.A., Geneva 17, Switzerland.
Direct Tel: (+41)(0)22 703 0959
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
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