Looking back on history, you might say records managers had it easy. Records were static objects, with a clear beginning, middle, and end of life. Systems were filing cabinets. Deciding what was a record often required determining only whether it was printed on 8×10 paper. From there, straightforward business processes and functions made classifying records a snap.
In organizations today, paper records can be as absent as Dictaphones and fax machines. In their place lie complex digital ecosystems, constantly churning and being updated. These ecosystems often cross continents. Within this transformed landscape, records and information management professionals must also adapt. Retention schedules built around documents, even digital ones, are no longer enough to keep organizations compliant with retention and disposition laws. If a digital system can generate a regulated record on demand—or even if it merely contains regulated data—then the system itself must be part of the retention equation. In other words, retention decisions that ignore digital systems create false confidence in your RIM compliance.
The job of RIM professionals now requires data management.
Key Takeaways:
- Traditional RIM focused on static objects; modern RIM focuses on dynamic digital ecosystems.
- Process-driven retention manages the systems and data flows that generate records, not just the records themselves.
- Keeping underlying transactional data while deleting a record creates a “false confidence” in compliance.
- Success requires RIM professionals to master data mapping, system architecture, and cross-departmental collaboration.
The Future of Retention is Process-Driven
It’s helpful to think of computing systems as factories and records as the products being manufactured. It doesn’t matter if you’ve disposed of the end product when the raw material is still on the factory floor and can be used to create another same or a similar record. Under a process-driven retention approach, RIM professionals must focus on how data flows through systems and business processes, recognizing that records are often generated, regenerated, or reconstructed from underlying data long after a record is deleted. Process-driven retention shifts from managing documents to managing the processes and systems that process regulated content.
If an organization determines it must delete a financial report or a customer statement, but it keeps the underlying transactional database, the risk driving the disposition decision has merely been taped over. In other words, you cannot claim compliance at the record level if the underlying data ecosystem still exists to recreate, substantially reconstruct, or functionally reissue the record.
Process-driven retention builds around the fact that data doesn’t stay in a static state. It’s instead constantly changing. Process-driven retention also appreciates that datasets are often dependent on other datasets to be meaningful. Accordingly, the process-driven RIM professional must recognize that retention outcomes must be determined by system behavior, not just by deleting isolated datapoints. A modern RIM program must be as much about how data systems behave as it is about how long records are kept.
Process-Driven Retention Requires RIM Professionals to be Curious
To adopt a process-driven retention mindset, RIM professionals must elevate their understanding of computing systems and technologies. They must learn new skills and domains. These include data mapping, IT system architecture, and data lifecycles. RIM professionals must begin thinking in terms of the retention implications of computing system event logs, audit trails, system metadata, data pipelines, and even “machine memory” in AI systems.
Process-driven retention also requires creating closer partnerships with privacy, IT, product and engineering teams, and cybersecurity professionals. In a process-driven retention world, these are the RIM professionals’ new cross-collaborators. RIM professionals must be the glue that binds these diverse fields to help their organizations achieve retention and disposition compliance.
New Questions for a New Era of Retention Management
The distinction between “Data,” “information,” and “record” was long an object of worship in the RIM field. Unless the object was a record, RIM professionals need not have been concerned. Such thinking is outmoded. In the process-driven retention age, RIM professionals must think fluidly, thinking through the retention implications of data in all of its forms.
RIM professionals must also shift their focus from classification to system comprehension. Instead of merely asking, “Is this a record?” the RIM professional’s most important question must now be “Show me how this works?”
Additional Resources
To learn more about Zasio’s approach to records retention management, check out our February 2026 Virtual Coffee Webinar with Jennifer Chadband, Warren Bean, and Rick Surber, as well as this written compendium.
Disclaimer: The purpose of this post is to provide general education on information governance topics. The statements are informational only and do not constitute legal advice. If you have specific questions regarding the application of the law to your business activities, you should seek the advice of your legal counsel.