Not sure whether or not to handle your shredding needs in-house or considering outsourced shredding services? There are many factors to consider, including the quantity of shredding you’ll need, the size of your staff, cost and what it will take to ensure sensitive material is handled securely. Doing all shredding in-house might even make sense in certain circumstances, like if you’re a one-person operation and are committed to doing it all. Most businesses still elect to use shredding services for at least some of their sensitive materials. Designing a shredding strategy that meets your data security needs and suits your budget is something every business owner needs to do for themselves.
DIY Shredding for Businesses: Pros and Cons
Cost and convenience are the two most obvious advantages to DIY shredding, compared to using professional shredding services.
- Buying a compact shredder and having an employee shred sensitive documents might cost you less over the course of a year, compared to having a contract with a shredding service.
- DIY shredding allows you to shred things immediately after you’re done with them, which seems ideal for data security. And DIY shredding also seems more convenient because you don’t have to arrange for someone to come pick up your shreddable materials.
What’s the downside to using DIY shredding for your business’s sensitive documents?
- This method doesn’t necessarily save money or time. Just like printers, office shredders tend to jam and break down frequently. They need to be maintained and eventually replaced. (And just like printers, shredders tend to break down at the worst possible time!) Shredding a lot of documents is also a slow process with most low-volume office shredders, so it takes employees away from other tasks.
- DIY shredding can be risky if you don’t have total confidence in the employee(s) responsible for destroying documents. Are they going to let papers pile up in an open bin and only get around to shredding occasionally? Are they going to take a shortcut and toss all those sensitive papers into the general recycling bin, or even keep some of those documents for their own purposes?
- Disposing of shreds is also an issue. Shredded paper generally can’t be mixed in with your other recyclable paper because it creates problems for commercial recycling machinery. Your business may have to throw away any shredded paper (which isn’t environmentally responsible) or make arrangements with your recycling service to collect it.
- DIY shredding is only a viable solution for shredding paper documents, and potentially some payment cards depending on what the machine can handle. Businesses will still need to arrange to shred hard drives, ID badges, tapes and other items that can store sensitive data.
Using Shredding Services for Businesses: Pros and Cons
There are a lot of reasons why businesses of all sizes and industries use shredding services, either instead of or in addition to DIY shredding.
- It’s the easiest way to manage large quantities of shreddable material. With pickup services, a shredding company can clear the boxes and bins out of your workspace in minutes. Commercial shredders can destroy your documents in seconds.
- Shredding services are able to destroy hard drives, photographs, access badges, tapes and other types of media that your business uses to store sensitive data. Off-spec or defective products and other proprietary merchandise can also be destroyed using commercial shredding equipment.
- A reputable shredding service can provide documentation of each shredding session you do. Those records could be useful if you’re ever asked to provide proof of destruction for some sensitive materials that were in your control.
As for drawbacks?
- The cost of shredding services is a consideration. Yes, it’s an important part of your data security strategy, but business owners need to feel good about how much value they get for their money.
- Not all shredding services are equally reputable. Don’t trust your business’s most sensitive documents and hard drives to just anyone. Look for NAID “AAA” certification as proof that a shredding service has been vetted.
DIY Shredding vs. Shredding Services: 3 Key Takeaways for Businesses
- Your business may want to use DIY shredding for low-volume, high-sensitivity jobs without sacrificing data security or wasting a lot of time. For example, a business owner might keep a small shredder in their office so they can destroy certain types of sensitive documents personally on an as-needed basis.
- Contracting with a shredding service is the most convenient and secure way to manage larger quantities of sensitive documents, as well as hard drives and other types of media. Collecting materials in locked bins and entrusting them to a shredding service ensures that none of your employees or visitors can access the private documents or obsolete hard drives you’re preparing to destroy.
- If budget is the primary driving factor for considering DIY shredding, business owners can work with their shredding vendors to find ways to control costs without sacrificing data security. (Dropping off your own materials to the shredding facility instead of arranging for pickups, as an example.)
Are Shredding Services Best for Your Business?
Northeast Data Destruction recognizes that our clients have very different needs. Some of these businesses want us to shred every piece of paper they handle, and schedule regular pickups; others prefer to use shredding services on an as-needed basis, once a lot of sensitive material has piled up.
Let’s talk about how Northeast Data Destruction’s services can make shredding easy, secure and affordable for your business. Contact me today!