Why is paper shredding still important in this digital age?
In the digital age in which we live the focus often seems to be on virtual information and data, protecting it and securing it. And, while that certainly plays an important role in ensuring compliant and customer friendly business practices, it’s not the only consideration. We still use large volumes of paper in our daily lives – and particularly in the workplace – which means that paper shredding still has a key role to play for a number of reasons:
Ensuring your customers trust you
Customer trust is the foundation of positive business relationships that benefit from repeat custom. Today, customers are much more aware of the risks to their data from poor data management and are more likely to ask how your business disposes of documents that contain sensitive or personal information about them. A well documented shredding process will provide peace of mind and give your customers a good reason to continue to trust the relationship.
Delivering on compliance obligations
Compliance is the theme for businesses for 2018, particularly with the GDPR coming into force this year. Safe management of data and effective destruction play a big role in this – and not just in the digital context. Paper shredding can help ensure your business is compliant with data handling standards right across your enterprise.
Avoiding identity theft
It’s all too easy to piece together an identity from documents that aren’t safely disposed of. Key information, from payment details to a date of birth, home phone number and address can all be collected from trash documents. However, with a paper shredding process in place there is no opportunity for any of this information to be exposed, as it is destroyed well before it gets to the point where it could be accessed by a third party.
Protecting your own business
It’s not just customer data that paper shredding is designed to protect. Sensitive or confidential data about your business could be very useful to rivals, or just those looking to generate some quick income from information that gets into the wrong hands. Banking information, data about business relationships, new product specifications, projections and plans all count as the kind of information that you may not want anyone who isn’t an employee to see. The only safe way to ensure that’s the case is to work with a paper shredding service that will safely destroy documents and media you no longer need.
Greater efficiency
Paper takes up a lot of room, often in expensive office space. It’s a much more efficient use of resources to shred documents and media no longer required so there isn’t such a great need for storage. Not only does excessive document hoarding look unattractive and cost money to maintain but it could also be a fire risk. Shredding can also help to improve your eco credentials, as shredded waste can be recycled and reused, so reducing the impact that your organisation has on the world around.
If you’d like to find out more about paper shredding as an option for your business then get in touch with Shred-on-Site today.
Author: Mark Coombes, Follow me on Google+
