Iron Mountain Management Shift
April 14, 2011
I pay some attention to Iron Mountain. My first exposure to the company came in a meeting focused on putting paper documents someplace “safe”. Iron Mountain seemed to have a safe place, an “iron” mountain I suppose. The company snagged Purple Yogi, now Stratify, and more recently Mimosa Systems. Both of these acquisitions relate to search and content processing. I don’t have much to say about these acquisitions. Search is more of an issue for an Iron Mountain customer, not the top brass. When I read “Iron Mountain CEO Steps Down, Will Be Replaced by Chairman,” I figured that someone is not happy.
The passage that caught my attention was:
New York hedge fund Elliott Management Corp. last month called for a review of Iron Mountain’s strategy, saying the company’s effort to expand its international and digital businesses hasn’t generated enough returns. Iron Mountain provides business storage and maintains documents including records, electronic files, medical data and e-mail.
Is there a fix? Sure. Will it come quickly enough in today’s financial market? Who knows. I think that the problems of paper, electronic data, and finding are a volatile mix. Obviously the chemistry is not quite right. Storage should be a search enabled application. Iron Mountain may want to consider a shift in the firm’s center of gravity. An eccentric orbit often becomes increasingly difficult to stabilize.
Stephen E Arnold, April 15, 2011
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