Iron Mountain/Stratify Get an Azurini T Shirt
August 10, 2010
“New Iron Mountain Consulting Arm Combines Records Management and eDiscovery Expertise to Help Clients Cut Information Costs and Risks” interested me. Iron Mountain, a company with lots of trucks that move paper from Point A to Point B, has jumped into consulting services. Readers of this blog know that I find the folks donning azurini T shirts an interest.
According to the news story which looked to me like a public relations-type write up:
[Iron Mountain] announced the formation of a new consulting practice, which combines the company’s long-established practice in records and information management and its electronic discovery management team. Iron Mountain Consulting advises customers around the world on how to lower the cost of managing information and records, meet complex industry regulations, prepare for eDiscovery, manage complex litigation and avoid data or IT systems disasters. By combining its deep knowledge in hardcopy records, electronic information management, litigation readiness and legal process into one consulting practice, Iron Mountain can better advise and offer customers integrated solutions for consistently managing all of their information with less cost, risk and complexity.
What will be the new pecking order at Iron Mountain? [a] Records retention, [b] software licenses, consultants who sell big jobs and want to use another firm’s solutions? Image source: http://www.tigersoft.com/TigerSoft-Practical-Psychology/T01.htm
Three observations:
- Other blue chip and azure chip consultants will have to make certain each knows something about records retention policies, archival storage, and search. Iron Mountain has lots of experience with paper and digital content. A company with “real” clients and “real” experience may win engagements that the amateurs once viewed as their Jus primae noctis.
- Iron Mountain will have to figure out how to make the human resources, travel, and bonus stuff work. There is a big difference in accounting when one sells a monthly hauling service, licenses to software systems, and brain power. In my experience, those jumping into an azure colored pool often find that upon exiting their bathing trunks are tinted in a color not too different from red ink.
- Management will have its hands full. In an outfit like Iron Mountain the technical folks have been gaining influence. Senior management at a firm like Iron Mountain is not going to be toting and iPad and attending Defcon. When a consultant nails a big job, the pecking order is going to change or the azure chip person is going to hike right on over to a “real” consulting firm. Consultants sell clients and their loyalty (such as it is) is for the client. If the client wants a solution from a third party firm, the consultant will get that best-of-breed solution and the money. The Iron Mountain folks are likely to be really annoyed to have an azure chip person sell a competitor’s product. If Iron Mountain does not deliver objective solutions to a consulting client, that’s an exciting situation to consider.
This will be interesting to watch. Stratify complements other search and retrieval technology at Iron Mountain. Will Stratify the azurini?
Stephen E Arnold, August 9, 2010
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