Shred360 Explains Shredding Solutions for Small Offices

With information destruction compliance issues requiring more small businesses to destroy
discarded information (either proprietary or customer related), the typical response is to
purchase a moderately priced office shredder. These businesses typically don’t realize that
a qualified shredding provider can handle the task much more efficiently and effectively.
Many small offices feel that they will have too little material to interest an outside shredding
contractor, or that it will be more expensive than doing it themselves. Managers of small
offices may also believe that it is actually more secure to shred materials themselves. These are all common misconceptions.

Let’s take a closer look at these issues…

True compliance with the growing number of legal regulations in this area requires that an
increasing percentage of discarded office paper to be shredded. To ensure compliance, many
businesses are destroying virtually every piece of discarded office paper to eliminate any
potential violation.

Most office shredders will only handle a few sheets of paper at a time. With more and more
paper needing to be shredded, this process is also time consuming. In a small office, employee
productivity is very important. An already overburdened employee uses valuable time
shredding paper when they should be focused on core tasks and responsibilities. In today’s
lean economic times, this has never been more true with the reduced staffs that many small
businesses are now forced to work with. Ironically, the smaller the office, the bigger impact on
productivity. Employees may even bypass the shredding process because of frustration with an
increased workload. This leads to vital information eventually finding its way to a dumpster out
back, rather than being properly destroyed. This most certainly leads to unacceptable risks to
the small business owner/manager.

But, the expense of in-house shredding goes beyond the loss of productivity. Small office
shredders, when worked to the extent required for full compliance, often overheat, jam and
break down. Between the cost of replacing or repairing broken shredders and the loss in
productivity, a shredding service would cost significantly less.

On the other hand, by using a secure collection container provided by Shred360, compliance is
easy. Materials that require shredding are simply deposited into the container and forgotten.
Shred360 will come with one of its state-of-the-art mobile shred trucks to gather and destroy
the material on the premises. There are many options available to the business owner as to
sizes of collection containers and frequency of servicing.

With regard for the security of the process, utilizing Shred360 is actually preferable for several

reasons. First, utilizing Shred360 substantially increases the likelihood that all necessary
documents are being destroyed. Second, it is common knowledge among security and
insurance professionals that employees constitute a greater risk to the misuse of information
than do contractors. Employees know the value of information, have an opportunity to
remove it, and are most interested in the company’s financial and payroll information. Secure
collection containers effectively eliminate this threat. Lastly, it is quite common to simply
discard the shredded material from a small office. Shredded material, even cross cut, can be
put back together easily with available software. A shredding contractor controls access to the
shredded materials and immediately transfers them to a recycling facility, where they are sent
off to be made into new paper, or paper related products, rendering the sensitive information
permanently irretrievable.

All things considered, any small office should consider utilizing the document destruction
services of Shred360. It is more secure and more economical than in-house shredding,
and, when care is used to select the service provider, it also complies with the ‘reasonable
measures’ as defined by virtually every present regulation regarding information disposal.

To find out how Shred360 can benefit your business, and to learn more about the many
available options, please contact Shred 360’s Director of Sales, Greg Shealy, at 803-463-7090 or via email at [email protected].