In-house vs Outsourced Shredding

While most companies are conservative about sharing their documents with a third-party solution provider, there are also benefits towards outsourced shredding services. As such, the decision whether to have this done in-house is definitely an important business decision that requires proper evaluation of the pros and the cons.

However, even before that, the following factors must be considered before making the call:

• The volume of documents needed to be shred daily, weekly or monthly
• The confidentiality of the documents that are subject for disposal
• The number of employees needed to carry out the task, as well as the number of hours they’ll spend for the task and the time lost on profit-generating business activities

In House Shredding

Small companies typically employ a do-it-yourself approach in discarding documents.

Companies using this strategy enjoy the following benefits:

• The costs for the work can be hidden in employee wages.
• The processing time is quicker because it can be executed anytime.

However, the following disadvantages have been foreseen:

• This tedious task is non-profit generating. As such, it defocuses employees from prioritizing core business tasks on a day-to-day basis.
• They may let it build up and then try to hide it in the trash.
• There is no real assurance that all sensitive information is destroyed by the employee-in-charge.
• The completion of task does not earn the company an official certification that regulators often require.

Outsourced Shredding

Most established companies, on the other hand, which handle high volumes of sensitive information, hire shredding service providers.

A company’s incentives from hiring outsourced shredding partners include the following:

• It allows companies to free up their internal resources.
• It has better regulatory compliance because of its more rigid and highly certified shredding processes.
• It reduces security risks because only selected professionals are given access to shredding the documents.