White Papers

2. Realizing the Need and Putting the Key Components in Place to "Getting it Right" in Records Management

To meet the increasingly stringent and complex legal, regulatory, and operational requirements for managing records, there must be significant improvements in the process by which organizations manage all of their records.

This white paper was prepared for AIIM International.

3. Assured Records Management: Establish and Maintain a New Level of Perfomance

The beginning of the twenty-first century has been marred by an erosion of trust in corporate and government institutions. Waves of regulatory investigations and sanctions, the proliferation of electronic content, and concerns about the protection of privacy and intellectual property have raised awareness among business and political leaders of the urgent need to improve enterprise information management.

This Cohasset white paper... Complete Abstract...

4. IBM FileNet Records Manager - Cost Effective Electronic Records Management: An Assessment

This white paper is Cohasset Associates’ assessment of FileNet’s Records Manager software and associated products – regarding the capabilities of these products to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of managing electronic records.

Cost-effective electronic records management is possible if the management process is automated. This white paper is an analysis of how FileNet’s Records Manager automates the declaration and... Complete Abstract...

5. Compliance Requirements Assessment: IBM DB2 Records Manager and Record-Enabled Solutions

With their respected accuracy, detail, and completeness, records have historically been regarded as the “corporate memory” – documenting daily business actions and decisions. When records meet both operational and legal requirements, they are recognized as the most trustworthy evidence of an organization’s voluminous transactions and processes. As such, records enable companies and government agencies to review, analyze or document the... Complete Abstract...

6. The Eternal Charter: Improving Corporate Governance through Compliance and Assured Records Management

In today’s business world, companies face heightened stakeholder, legal, and regulatory pressures. With investors increasingly comparing companies on the basis of the quality and effectiveness of their governance, the ability of a business to leverage the value of its records will directly influence the valuation of the company.

This Cohasset white paper provides a compelling new perspective on how effective records management... Complete Abstract...

7. Information Governance: A Core Requirement for the Global Enterprise

This Cohasset white paper details the major disconnect that exists between managing the information lifecycle to meet operating requirements and enforcing information policies – a problem primarily due to organizations not recognizing:

• Policy enforcement is the keystone of successful records management and
• Enforcement of enterprise records management (ERM) policies is an integral part of ERM management

8. No Paper Weight – ROI Assessment

Although electronic records management systems have been available for nearly ten years, they have not been implemented at the anticipated level of success because the process of declaring and classifying their records still has been largely manual. Today, the automation of records management policies, processes and business practices is no longer an option; it is a necessity.

To facilitate the needed adoption of needed new records... Complete Abstract...

9. The Legality of Digital Image Copies of Paper Records

This Cohasset white paper seeks to help organizations make informed decisions to convert their paper records in digital image copies. Specifically, it addresses the extent to which digital image copies, a subset of ESI, a) are legal as records, b) can substitute for paper originals and c) can be admitted into evidence in a court of law as credible records - imbuing accuracy, reliability and trustworthiness. Authoritative answers to four... Complete Abstract...

10. 2009 Electronic Records Management Survey - Call for Sustainable Capabilities

The findings of the 2009 Cohasset Associates ARMA International Electronic Records Management Survey reflect both progress and significant problems:

• Considerable improvements have been achieved in some key programmatic components associated with the successful management of electronic records.
• For an alarming number of organizations, the efficient and systematic management of records is still not getting done.
... Complete Abstract...

11. Authenticity: The Gateway to Admissability

The 2006 revisions to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) manifest many significant legal changes, particularly with respect to the legal policies regarding the management of electronically stored information (ESI).

Record integrity and timely production of ESI are now essential goals for all organizations. In support of these two objectives, this Cohasset white paper seeks to identify how the FRCP provide opportunities,... Complete Abstract...

12. Managing Records Across the Enterprise

Electronic record content is proliferating exponentially as commercial and public organizations conduct more and more of their day-to-day business using electronic documents and data. The greatest legal and business risks associated with this vast volume of electronic content are those records typically stored and managed on local hard disk (“C”) drives, network storage servers or shared drives, e-mail servers or related backup media –... Complete Abstract...

13. Meet the Content Tsunami Head On

Organizations of all sizes need a robust information governance capability for organizing structured and unstructured information assets into meaningful and sustainable categories without a significant reliance on users. To that end, the power of computers must be used to appraise, organize, and retrieve content at a pace that can match the rate at which it is received and created.

This means that organizations must:

• Embrace a... Complete Abstract...