You have to safeguard sensitive information. Data breaches will hurt your business reputation and subject you to OSHA fines. No matter how secure you think you have your information, an on-site shredding service eliminates the risk that someone will access confidential information.
Based on California law, you need to have a plan in place for protecting customer information, or you could face crushing fines. Failure to properly dispose of this information poses a grave danger.
#1: Remain Productive
Hiring a professional on-site shredding service eliminates the need for tasking employees with this work. You bring productivity to a grinding halt when you have them do it because shredding sensitive information takes time, depending on how many clients you have. You could lose hours of precious time setting them to an unnecessary task.
#2: Eliminate In-House Security Leaks
You want to believe that you can trust everyone, but many examples exist where a disgruntled employee deleted all the company’s important files or stole sensitive documents and posted them on the internet. No matter how trustworthy your employees, granting them access to this information puts your business at risk. You lower that risk with a clearly defined information disposal policy.
In particular, look for a NAID AAA and ISO 9001 certified company. This mitigates the risk of an in-house leak of sensitive information, which could cost you bundles of cash.
#3: Must Follow Safety Guidelines
Let’s say that your employee has an accident while shredding information. You face liability in cases like that. The professionals who do on-site shredding service have received training on how to shred documents safely. Any company worth using will also carefully screen and background check its employees. They cover their employees with insurance too. Having insurance means that in the event of an accident, your business won’t face liability.
The training lowers the risk that the documents will receive poor handling, and it helps to ensure that it gets properly destroyed.
#4: Destroyed in a Safe and Secure Fashion
Having your documents shredded on-site lowers the risk that sensitive information will get leaked. On-site shredding means that you don’t have to transfer it far, which can lead to information getting lost in transit. You don’t want to leave a single document behind. One shred of a leak can lead to potentially millions of dollars in fines. Not only that, but your business will suffer a huge hit to its reputation. Some customers will not want to do business with you after that.
Upon any successful completion of a shredding project, the company will provide you with a Certificate of Destruction at the end. You can trust that your sensitive information has been disposed of.
#5: Convenience
Not only does it allow your employees to focus on more important tasks, but the convenience of it can’t be understated. Many on-site shredding services will offer you lockable security and storage bins with regular service. When the technician arrives at the business, he will take the documents and shred them. At the end of the job, the technician leaves with your shredded documents and disposes of them. You never even have to figure out how you will dispose of it.
#6: Saves You Money
As said before, your employees could have to spend hours regularly shredding documents. During that time, they don’t complete the essential work that they need to be doing to earn your business money. At the same time, they receive an hourly wage doing this work. Having your documents shred on-site means that you never have to repair or replace an office shredder. An office shredder does the job for smaller workloads, but it doesn’t do much with the larger loads where you have piles of paperwork. After a while, the blades lose sharpness, and this consumes more of your time.
Hiring someone else to do the job, document shredding takes up none of your time. At the same time, professionals do it more effectively. The written record of it serves as evidence that you had the information shredded, and you can schedule this regularly if needed. At the same time, you stay compliant!
#7: No Time Spent Preparing Documents
Having an office document shredder takes up space, and you have to prepare the documents before you shred them. Failure to do this means that the shredder jams. Professional services mean that you don’t have to bat an eyelash at any of it. Professional shredding service doesn’t require removing the staples, clips and other obstacles to shredding. You can go straight to business. Don’t worry about any of it. Simply call the on-site shredding service, and they will come and shred your documents without hassle.
#8: Take Advantage of Extra Services Offered
Many times, on-site shredding services will offer extra services that you can take advantage of. Some of the services that a company might include are:
- IT asset disposal
- Hard drive shredding
- Obsolete product destruction
Getting everything through one company, you may want to request information about discounts and promotions. Many times, companies will reward businesses that take multiple services through them. This depends on the company, however.
#9: Compliance Matters
Don’t toe the line when it comes to compliance because it can cost you a small fortune. Look at companies that didn’t stay compliant, and you will learn of the true cost. Compliance also exists to keep customers safe, and if you fail to remain compliant, you can hurt your business reputation by hurting your customers. Failure to protect confidential information is also a crime. You don’t want to suffer the consequences of a data breach.
Hopefully, this gives you some excellent reasons to hire on-site shredding services. Look at it as an investment. Data breach costs the average company $8.19 million. The costs of data breaches have worsened in the last couple of years. In 2018, the average data breach cost $7.91 million. This could set your company back for years, and it could even catalyze Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Paying a reputable company to shred your documents saves you from severe heartache down the road.
To learn more about paper shredding, contact Shred Confidential today online or by phone at (866) 817-4733.
