Acquisition of cloud-based subscription service will provide
automated capabilities for managing records retention and policy,
ensuring compliance with global guidelines
BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE: IRM), the storage and information
management company, today announced it has acquired Fontis International
of Denver, Colo., a provider of a cloud-based subscription service for
records retention guidelines. Iron Mountain will now offer unique
capabilities for continuously updating retention schedules that can be
distributed in a fully-automated manner. Fontis’ offering helps
organizations better manage the storage and destruction lifecycle of
their records according to industry and geographic laws and regulations,
enabling compliance and legal defensibility for their information
management programs. As part of the acquisition, Fontis’ President Steve
Formica and Chief Technology Officer Matt Hillery will join Iron
Mountain to lead sales and product development for this service and
technology-based offering; additional terms of the deal were not
disclosed.
Most enterprises struggle to keep up with guidelines for retention (how
long to keep records for legal or business reasons), relying on manual,
time-intensive and often error-prone processes to research, update and
communicate changes to policies. In response, they often default to a
“store everything” approach that can increase their risk of
non-compliance, drive up storage costs, and make it difficult to respond
to discovery requests during litigation. Holding records for too long
and failing to follow retention guidelines also can hold back the
expected benefits of an information management program, making it
difficult to mine those records for insights into the business that can
deliver real, bottom-line value.
Fontis’ cloud-based subscription service allows Iron Mountain to deliver
automated, up-to-date retention guidelines from around the world that
are researched, curated and vetted by legal experts within individual
industries and geographies. Organizations can update their retention
schedule via Fontis’ online interface, and then publish it so that those
guidelines can be communicated to all employees across the enterprise –
removing one of the biggest barriers to achieving defensible compliance.
Organizations can feel secure that they are retaining their records
according to policy, giving them the opportunity to cut costs by
destroying information in a timely manner and controlling storage spend
by keeping only what they need.
“True information management is built on fundamental pieces, building
blocks that can mean the difference between effective programs and those
not quite good enough,” said Blaine Rigler, senior vice president of
Global Solutions for Iron Mountain. “One of those essential pieces is a
records retention schedule that details the guidelines you need to
follow, as well as the ability to communicate them as part of your
policy to the organization. This acquisition helps us strengthen that
piece, ensuring our customers are continuously informed of actionable
changes to regulations that impact their information. They can get away
from the task of making periodic, manual updates, feeling confident that
their policy is up-to-date and vetted by geography and industry, with
the added advantage of being able to communicate those changes across
the enterprise. It fits perfectly with our current solutions and our
goal to provide those building blocks for complete, holistic information
management to our customers for today and the future.”
“We’re excited to join Iron Mountain,” said Steve Formica. “We created
our products to serve as single sources of truth for managing compliance
with the myriad of regulations that information managers face every day.
Bringing that capability to Iron Mountain is a natural fit, a strong
brand with deep roots and expertise, and we look forward to helping the
company deliver on its vision for complete information management.”
For more information on the Iron Mountain’s solutions for managing
retention and policy, visit www.ironmountain.com/Services/Records-Management-And-Storage/Automated-Records-Retention-Schedule.aspx.
And see the Iron Mountain/Fontis service in person, stop by the Iron
Mountain booth (#1119) at ARMA 2014 or visit arma.ironmountain.com.
About Iron Mountain
Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE: IRM) is a leading provider of storage
and information management services. The company’s real estate network
of over 67 million square feet across more than 1,000 facilities in 36
countries allows it to serve customers with speed and accuracy. And its
solutions for records
management, data
management, document
management, and secure
shredding help organizations to lower storage costs, comply with
regulations, recover from disaster, and better use their information for
business advantage. Founded in 1951, Iron Mountain stores and protects
billions of information assets, including business documents, backup
tapes, electronic files and medical data. Visit www.ironmountain.com
for more information.
Source: Iron Mountain