As ASQ (American Society for Quality) explains on their Web site, “ ‘the ‘cost of quality’ isn’t the price of creating a quality product or service, it’s the cost of NOT creating a quality product or service.”

In a typical company or corporate setting, when work has to be redone, the “cost of quality” increases. The stakes are higher when thinking about the “cost of quality” in relationship to your information destruction provider. It’s not “re-doing” the shredding that we’re talking about in this instance, it’s the shredding that never happened in the first place.

The “cost of quality” in this example is when one piece of paper ends up in a dumpster, or taken by employees that were never back ground checked, and your company gets a fine like this one, “Rite Aid agrees to pay $1 million to Settle HIPAA Privacy Case.”  In this case, the fine ended up being HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability Accountability Act) related, and costing Rite Aid $1 million dollars.

Saving a few dollars each month by going with a less expensive information destruction provider that isn’t as experienced, doesn’t use industry leading best practices, and doesn’t aid in proper employee training can lead to more than just an increase in “cost of quality,” it can be the difference that leads to you staying in business.

Price is an important factor for determining who you will trust with your company’s information, but “cost of quality” can be the intangible factor that keeps your company out of unflattering headlines.

All document destruction providers are not created equal, and the monthly fee you pay them to handle information that you don’t want ending up in the headlines is just a start.

Should your company end up in headlines like this one, Miami-Dade Public Schools Have an Identity Theft Problem, and this one, Accretive Health Sued for Loss of Electronic Patient Data,  you will likely have to answer a few questions.

How does your information destruction provider screen their employees handling your information? Have they come to your business to do an on-site audit? Have you visited their destruction vault or company site? How do they use technology? Do you know when and how your materials have been disposed? -These are just a few of the questions you may have to answer if your company’s information ends up in the limelight.

A survey conducted by Ponemon Research, sponsored by equipment and software firm Juniper Networks, reported 59 percent of the responding companies experienced two or more breaches within the last year.

Below is chart explaining how Shred Right exceeds industry safeguards from employee screening to a secure, no landfill waste process for disposing of your company’s information.

Call Shred Right today and get all the details about why your company should choose us as your information destruction provider.

Staying and getting your data and information organized takes a commitment from your entire team. Take a few minutes, talk to your employees and co-workers, and figure out how they destroy documents they want to dispose. Knowing your company’s policy on how they should destroy the documents they aren’t required to retain is equally important.  Do you know how much confidential information is stored in the documents your company generates every day? This can be anything from credit card numbers to customer lists, revenue reports, memos or sales receipts. Customers, employees and vendors have the legal right to have their data protected. Mismanagement of any of the above sensitive materials can lead to identity theft.

Shred Right can help you analyze what your business needs to implement in order to minimize its exposure of sensitive information and data breaches. Your data and information destruction needs will be assessed to comply with regulatory laws, legislation and your budget.  Shred Right is not only NAID certified, but keeps up to date on changing industry standards. NAID is implementing stronger safeguards for businesses working with their NAID certified members, and Shred Right is leading the way in implementing the new changes.

If you can’t explain to your employees how they should handle sensitive data and information, it’s time to get a makeover in 2012 with help from Shred Right. Not all data and information destruction companies are created equal. Next month we’ll explore what due diligence your company should use to select your provider. These are just a few of the reasons Shred Right is THE information destruction authority.

Saturday, 5.19.12, 9am-11am- Shred Right & Owatonna Rotary @ Cashwise. 495 West North St., Owatonna, MN 55060. All donations benefit the Owatonna Rotary!

June

Saturday, 6.2.12, 9am-noon- Shred Right @ Community Pride Bank- Ham Lake. 1441 Bunker Lake Boulevard NE, Ham Lake, MN 55304.

Saturday, 6.9.12, 9am-1pm- Shred Right @ Wings Financial- Apple Valley. 14985 Glazier Avenue,  Apple Valley, MN 55124.

Saturday, 6.9.12, 9am-11am- Shred Right @ Lake Community Bank. 1102 57th St.,  Albertville, MN 55301.

July

Saturday, 7.14.12, 9am-1pm- Shred Right @ Wings Financial- Apple Valley. 14985 Glazier Avenue,  Apple Valley, MN 55124.

August

Saturday, 8.11.12, 9am-1pm- Shred Right @ Wings Financial- Apple Valley. 14985 Glazier Avenue,  Apple Valley, MN 55124.

Saturday, 9.15.12, 9am-noon- Shred Right @ 1st National Bank. 1611 Honey Locust Dr., Northfield, MN 55057.

Saturday, 9.15.12, 9am-11am- Shred Right @ Community Resource Bank. 1605 Heritage Drive, Northfield, MN 55057.

Friday, 9.21.12, 9am-2pm- Shred Right @ Washington County Environmental Center. 4039 Cottage Grove Drive, Woodbury, MN 55129.

October

Saturday, 10.13.12, 9am-1pm- Shred Right @ Wings Financial- Apple Valley. 14985 Glazier Avenue,  Apple Valley, MN 55124.

November

Saturday, 11.10.12, 9am-1pm- Shred Right @ Wings Financial- Apple Valley. 14985 Glazier Avenue,  Apple Valley, MN 55124.

December

Saturday, 12.8.12, 9am-1pm- Shred Right @ Wings Financial- Apple Valley. 14985 Glazier Avenue,  Apple Valley, MN 55124.

The Twin Cities based document destruction company treverses the upper midwest daily purging and destroying sensitive documents.

Information destruction includes more than just paper documents, it can encompass anything from thumb drives, faulty product, tapes and hard drives.

Banks, doctors, dentists, accountants, and attorneys aren’t the only professionals who use Shred Right, it’s all businesses who want to protect their data from outside purview.

Whether it’s an annual purge, or a regular appointment, the shredding can be performed on site or at the plant. Meaning 200 pounds of paper can be consumed in a matter of minutes.

While most businesses know what data they need to store, how long it needs to be stored, and the most efficient way to get rid of  sensitive documents, sometimes an annual review is ideal.

According to Jim Beran, Director of Business Development for Shred Right and former President of the National Association of Information Destruction, the industry will continue to make strides and grow. “Digital information storage is definitely the way big businesses are moving, but paper documents aren’t going away,” Beran said.

“What does every employee do when they come across an important document, they print it out,” said Beran. “The paperless office is still a few tech breakthroughs away.”

What is changing are the penalties for businesses that compromise information.

Beran mentioned six to seven figure fines for organizations of all kinds, from hospitals to banks to the huge digital breach Sony just underwent.

Many businesses feel they can’t  leave anything to chance when it comes to securely disposing of documents. This is just one reason that many companies are choosing AAA NAID certified document destruction companies like Shred Right.

Shred Right not only can help with destroying hazardous paper documents, but the digital houses of data as well. With more companies using electronic data storage, Shred RIght is and the industry are responding with digital destruction services and development of destruction policies for all employees to learn.

Beran says, “Digital may be paving the future, but be confident that you know what is ending up in your dumpster.”

1. Train your employees to identify a sensitive document.
   Shred Right will educate your employees on what documents they should shred, and what they can recycle.
2. Develop an information destruction policy.
   Shred Right will help your business put a policy in place that outlines how sensitive documents are handled, who processes them, and how to access sensitive data.
3. Keep your employee and customer information safe.
   Don’t let customer credit card numbers, invoices or employee information get into a recycling bin, only to be fished out of a dumpster by a person with malicious intent. Avoid legal issues by making sure all this information ends up with Shred Right.
4. Avoid a hefty fine.
   Did you know that violating HIPAA can result in a fine ranging from $50,000 to $1,500,000? Making sure your small business properly destroys all protected health information is one way to avoid making headlines and paying a large fine.
5. Reduce costs.
   Have you ever analyzed how much of your employee’s time is devoted to document destruction/ shredding with a hand shredder? Save time and money when Shred Right handles your document destruction.
6. Go Green.
   Green Smart is our proprietary disposal approach designed to help our customers meet their goals – and ours. This discipline means that once your material is shredded, we follow our Green Smart disposal guidelines to keep the material out of landfills. It’s a zero-landfill policy.
7. Records Management Training.
   We offer consulting to our clients to proactively help you minimize risk of security breach in the workplace.;
8. Electronic Media Destruction.
   Almost untraceable, hidden pieces of data exist, and they exist even as companies dispose of old or outdated data storage devices their IT departments wiped clean. But just like washing a window with cleaner, sometimes a smudge or a smear is left behind.  That trace amount can be the difference of millions of dollars, if it’s the right tidbit of data.
9. Product Destruction.
   Sometimes manufacturing is off, product information isn’t correct, or the product is defective or discontinued. With all the new product development in the past decade, this area has expanded. In many situations like these, Shred Right has been called upon to destroy product safely and securely.
10. We are AAA NAID Certified.
    Our team has worked with government agencies, financial services, health care industries and more, consulting on standards for privacy and security. But at the end of the day, we believe the highest standards we need to meet are yours. For 25 years, we’ve been trusted to manage liability, risk and protect corporate reputations for customers.

The http://shredrightnow.com/industries/healthcare/phi-disposal-updates/ Web site was developed by the National Association for Information Destruction (NAID), a non-profit association promoting the proper destruction of sensitive information through education and standards development.

There are four main sections to the Web site: PHI Defined, Challenges, Solutions, Resources. Each section of the Web site gives small business owners tools to understand how disposal of sensitive information relates to their business.

The “PHI Defined” section explains what Protected Health Information is, what it means, and what types of documents fall into this category. Small business owners may not realize that PHI could mean something as simple as a phone message. Understanding how your business uses or stores PHI is half of the battle to getting your employees trained, developing a disposal policy, and following the laws.

“Challenges” is broken into four sub sections: The New HIPAA, Maintaining Productivity, New Mandatory HIPAA Fines, and PHI Disposal and the Media. The “Challenges” section specifically addresses how HIPAA has changed, and how it impacts your business. Additionally, the “Challenges” section is the place where you can find the stories about improperly discarded information that are making headlines.

The “Solutions” section is where you can find information on what to look for when hiring a service provider for document destruction, how to lower your costs and train employees, compliance and risk management, and tips for developing a PHI strategy. “Solutions” is important because it takes everything you had learned in the previous two sections, and provides ideas for how to manage your company’s risk, employees and develop a strategy that will be useful for your company.

Lastly, the “Resources” section will give you the tools to build your company’s full policy and program for PHI Disposal. Here you will find articles on how to select a quality service provider for your information destruction, the types of media that require destruction, free staff training, and how to easily document your destruction program.

Essentially if you have any questions about PHI Destruction, or do not have a strategy developed for your company’s destruction of PHI, http://shredrightnow.com/industries/healthcare/phi-disposal-updates/ in conjunction with your Shred Right account representative are all the tools your company needs to get  your company’s PHI Disposal moving in the right direction.

Does your company collect personal information about your customers or employees? Do your employees know your policy on how they should handle accessing and disposing of that information? The reason it’s important to ask yourself these questions is that over the last few years, identity theft and high profile security breeches have led to a host of new data protection laws and penalties.

While this protection is great for us as consumers and customers, it makes knowing the law a little trickier for companies themselves, and can be hard to navigate if you haven’t employed the help of a NAID certified information destruction company like Shred Right. One or more of these new data protection laws applies to any organization or company that has employees or customers.

For example, it’s illegal to allow unauthorized access to personal information. Organizations that handle personal information are required to properly train employees on data protection, including how it’s destroyed.

This is where the NAID information disposal training video can help. (Click here to see the short introductory trailer- http://www.shredrightnow.com/destruction-services/records-management-consulting/naid-training-video/.) Employees watch the 14 minute training video and are told how important the data destruction process is for your organization. Next, they receive a brief overview of your company’s data destruction program. Finally, your employees acknowledge they understand the video and orientation.

It’s easy, quick and demonstrates to regulators that you have done the expected due diligence to train your employees about their data destruction responsibilities.

Shred Right is NAID certified, and can get your company a copy of the full length training video. In addition, Shred Right can also help you develop your company’s data destruction policies, procedures and employee acknowledgement form. Call your account representative today, or click www.shredrightnow.com/contact-us/locations to put your data destruction plan and training into action.

Media Contact: Jim Beran
Shred Right Inc.
651.647.1300
jim@shredrightnow.com

Shred Right Completes Acquisition of Elite Shredding Inc. 

MINNEAPOLIS, MN - May 3, 2011 – Shred Right and Elite Shredding Inc.’s Owatonna, MN and Mason City, IA locations have announced they will merge operations under the Shred Right brand. The acquisition was complete on April 22, 2011 and will add Elite Shredding Inc. to Shred Right’s operation as the largest, locally owned, independent information destruction company in the upper midwest.

Shred Right, founded by President Ron Mason, and Elite Shredding Inc., managed by Stephanie Curtis, look forward to growing their companies together.  Curtis said, “I am looking forward to using everything I have learned with Elite Shredding, Inc. and incorporating it with the skills and advantages of Shred Right to provide an even better experience for our customers.”

Elite Shredding Inc. and Shred Right will have more resources available to provide small and large businesses the same kind of customer service and security they are known for among their clients.  Jim Beran, Vice President of New Business Development at Shred Right said, “The acquisition helps both companies provide a stronger presence that will be better for our customers.”
Worldwide headquarters will remain in the Shred Right, Saint Paul, MN location. For more information, please visit: www.shredrightnow.com .

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About Shred Right Inc.
Shred Right is AAA-Certified for on-site and off-site destruction of both print paper media and hard drives, and exceeds rigorous standards established by the NAID Quality Certification Program. For over 25 years, Shred Right has provided secure and high-tech methods for destruction. www.shredrightnow.com

About Elite Shredding Inc.
Elite Shredding Inc. provides customers with quick and secure service. As a locally owned, NAID certified shredding company, our most important goal is the safe destruction of our client’s confidential information. www.eliteshredding.com

The reason your small business should get a plan comes right down to the bottom line. The median cost of downtime for the average small business is $12,500 per day according to Symantec. Part of this loss could be avoided by knowing what documents are vital to your business, and where they should be stored in order to access them.

Imagine spending only a fraction of that cost to come up with a plan to avoid losses or downtime. This is where Shred Right can help. Our experts can train your employees to know what constitutes a document that needs to be retained or destroyed, and what the correct methods are to carry out that task. Having policies and procedures in place can help protect your company's vital documents, and prevent loss or misappropriation. 

With our team's help, you will also discover the legal role you play in training your own employees, vendors and associates in your policies. The training sessions can take place at your location or Shred Right's location. Sessions can be customized to meet the needs of your small business.

It's unlikely that we'll ever truly be able to predict disasters, but with Shred Right's help, at least your small business will be ready for them.

Visit: http://www.shredrightnow.com or Call: 1-800-289-8580 to get more information on how Shred Right can help create a pan for your small business.