International Standards (Records and Information Management) – Mosaic Company

Section 1: Introduction                                     

On a daily basis, companies face a lot of various data in the form of information that is constantly flowing in and out, and the data has the specific purpose of meeting the goals and objectives of the company. These in and outflow of information needs to be managed effectively in order to make the company’s functioning easy. It can only be done by the application of effective strategies that can cover all the requirements needed for the records and proper handling of information. The current project deals with the way sales and marketing companies manage their records and information on a regular basis. To this effect, the project is making the operations of the company clear regarding the information and record management. It also looks at international standards that are related to archiving and records management. Finally, it looks at the way sales and marketing company has implemented the standards or the recommendations of international standards that the company needs to perform. The report project is based on pure research on sales and marketing companies, and there will be instances of referring to the specific company, Mosaic Company, to provide a generalized data for similar sales and marketing companies. The importance of the given project is to show which international standards in records and information management have been put into practice by the sales and marketing companies which are located all over the globe.

Section 2: Overview of Mosaic Company

The company of choice for this project is sales and marketing company, Mosaic, a fast-growing North American company. The company primarily deals with marketing and sales business, where, in this case, it utilizes people as media in connecting the consumers with brands. The company executes many consumer B2B events, digital, visits and social strategies every year (Mosaic, n.d.). Basically, the company deals with two operations at one time. In marketing, according to Gunasekaran, Krishnadevarajan, Lawrence, and NAW Institute for Distribution Excellence (2012), employees try to find the commodity or service that people are looking for; on the one hand, they look for the reason why they want it and the amount of money they can spend on the service or the commodity. On the other hand, when handling sales issues the deal with the conversion of lead or inquiry into a contract (Gunasekaran et al., 2012).

The sales and marketing sector, being that everywhere people make a sale and buy goods and services; it is very wide with all the different operations involved. In our example, Mosaic Company in the United States and Canada has approximately 500 workers working on sales and marketing (Mosaic, n.d.). This number per a given station varies depending on the location of the branch of the company and the customers who are being served at a particular time per day. This translates to some regions, having a lower number of employees, while other areas have a higher number. Busy locations, therefore, are the places with a high number of employees and the less busy places are having a low number of staff (Marshall, 2013).

During the process of sales and marketing, the individuals have some roles and responsibilities to play. For example, there is market segmentation that depends on the product and service that is being offered by the company (Marshall, 2013). The segmentation can be done by an industry, geographical location or age. With the information of the segmentation that is being represented, the sales and marketers then strategize accordingly. In this case, they are like specializing in their segments by making sure that they do the sales and marketing perfectly (Marshall, 2013).

The sales and marketers deal with the information that enables their roles to be effective in the sector. According to Dixon and Adamson (2013), this information may vary, depending on the type of product and services that are being provided, while other information cut across all the areas of interest.

• The first information that the company does handle through its employees is product awareness surveys. This report deals with attracting more customers to visit mostly the website or a link that leads to a specified product.
• The second information is competitor comparison matrices. This information assists the sales and marketers to understand and communicate the product or service to the potential customers, as compared to competing companies.
• The third information is about product digest emails, where the sales and marketers assist the company to reach the potential customers through sending them emails with the information concerning the intended product or service.
• The forth information that the sales and marketers do handle to contribute to the company’s meeting goals and objectives is sales training sessions or presentations. This is where the team gets involved in improving their knowledge and skills on the task of sales and marketing through training sessions and presentations.

The records that the staff at Mosaic handles during their work are varying information but all of it is revolving around the customers. These records comprise but are not limited to the customers contact information, the frequency of their engagement with the company regarding buying goods or services and also the way customers pay their bills (Mosaic, n.d.). These records on the customers form a rich source of the market that the company can major on through analysis of the preferences of frequent customers as well as the kind of marketing approaches that appeal to them. The records are found in files that are personalized on the customers and are compiled depending on the frequency of customers to the business.

From here, the company goes ahead and does adjustments in response to the analysis by making sure that the customer’s needs are taken into consideration. Through these records, the companies do market research by making use of the data they have concerning the customers, since this type of data is only available to them because the customers are frequenting their business. At this point, the company becomes free to explore the records and do all that they feel are right and meeting or surpassing the needs and preferences of the regular customers.

The Mosaic sales and marketing company has various approaches to handling the records it obtains about their customers. Depending on the capability and size of the branches, some of them have records management software to manage the types of records they receive, while others just use human efforts in dealing with the records. Mostly in the case of manual management of the records, there is an archiving team that helps in the management of records through consultation of firms that are specialized in records management. Usually, the team responsible for archiving comprises of five to ten individuals who are tasked with the records management.

Section 3: A List of 5 International Standards Related to Archiving and Records Management

In business, there is a need to have the information and records managed effectively by the application of some standards. These standards are supposed to guide the companies, in this case, the sales and marketing companies. They provide meaningful and relevant guidance to the moves that are essential in the records management processes. However, sticking to them does not guarantee absolute success or a safe harbor. There are some of the standards that are internationally used by companies in the process of managing both information and records in an electronic manner. Some of the common standards that are set by standards-setting bodies include:

• British Standards Institute (BSI)
• Standards Council of Canada (SCC)
• International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
• American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
• National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
• Standards Australia

These standards have one thing in common, the management of information and records. The difference is the approach they take in meeting the objectives. The benefits of the standards are common they are cost reduction, offering quality assurance support, assisting in the implementation of framework and certification checklists, providing international consensus and, finally, interoperability support. The standards have the demerits that may manifest to the companies that they are involved with. For instance, there is a problem of standard confusion, failure of theoretical approaches in the real world approaches, maintenance cost for the changing and updating of the standards and, finally, the decreased flexibility in the development of the companies.

For this study on sales and marketing companies, we would like to look into the International Standards Organization (ISO) 30300 series to see how they can be used to manage both information and records. The ISO 30300 series has a systematic approach to the management and creation of records that are part of organizational strategies and objectives (ISO, n.d.). These series apply to Management systems for records (MSR).

The first part of the series is ISO 30300:2011, which deals with documentation and information management system for the records-fundamentals and vocabulary. This series gives an explanation of the rationale behind the creation of management system for records (MSR), as well as the guiding principles for its implementation with the provision of terminology. The benefit for applying this standard to sales and marketing sector is that it will make it easy to manage the records by providing the rationale for the creation of the system of records and giving the fundamentals of the used vocabularies.

The second part of the series is ISO 30301:2011 and it deals with documentation management and information systems for records-requirements. This standard gives a specification of the requirements that are necessary for the development of records policy. Also, it sets targets and objectives for the organization to implement the systematic improvements. The importance of applying this standard is that it will make easy the identifying of requirements that is necessary for the development of records policy for the sales and marketing company. This will assist in the implementation of systematic improvements.

The third standard that is worth implementing is the ISO 22310:2006 that deals with information and documentation-guidelines that are meant for drafters of standards for the starting of records management requirements in standards. The function of this standard is to allow the incorporation of records requirements appropriately regarding ISO 15489-1, ISO/TR 15489-2 AND 23081-1. The importance of this standard is that it will allow smooth incorporation of requirements for records, when applied in the sales and marketing company.

The fourth standard for application in the sales and marketing company is ISO 23081-1:2006 that deals with information and documentation-records management processes-metadata for records-dealing with principles. This standard deals with the principles that govern the metadata and records management. In the dealing with the records, the records, the standard look into their metadata, the processes that affect them, the organization that is responsible for their management and the system that the data reside. The importance of this standard, when applied to sales and marketing company, is that it will have the coverage of the principles that govern the metadata management. 

The fifth standard that can be implemented in sales and marketing company is the ISO/TS 23081-2:2009 that deals with the information and documentation-management metadata for the records. Specifically, it deals with conceptual and implementation issues by establishing the framework that defines metadata elements that are consistent with the implementation considerations. These considerations are outlined in ISO 23081-1:2006. The importance of this standard to sales and marketing company is that it will define the elements of metadata that are considered to be consistent with the principles and implementation of policies of the sales and marketing.

Section 4: Three Different International Standards Implemented in/Recommended to Be Implemented in Mosaic Company

The sales and marketing company needs to have the information and records to handle and manage carefully by the use of international standards. The following are some of the international standards that can be used effectively in the Mosaic company to make it useful in information and records management:

1. International Standard 1

As briefly discussed above, a recommended international standard that is worth recommending to Mosaic sales and marketing company is the international standardization organization (ISO) 30300 series. This international standard is divided into subparts that primarily deal with the management of records. The reason for the recommendation of this international standard is because the sales and company need the records to be well kept for the purpose of decision-making, as well as to make a documentation trail of the actions that have been taken.

This practice is prudent and can be used to manage the risks and to nurture the involved risks. In the legal matters, when the company is faced with litigation, it is in a position to have the relevant information retrieved, so as to ascertain the kind of decision that was taken in response to a given situation and the reason for this. Another important reason for the Mosaic to have this international standard to be implemented is to be relevant in the today’s trend of transition from the paper format of keeping records to the digital format of a management system for records (MSR). The following are the core reasons why the ISO 30300 series as an international standard needs to be implemented in Mosaic Company (Isa, Ismail, Nordin, & Saman, 2015):

• To define the roles and responsibilities of individuals in the company;

• To assist in the design and implement the management system for records (MSR);
• To efficiently handle policies and procedures in the company;
• To assist in the evaluation of performance, as well as help to improve the company in various dimensions.

The ISO 30300 series has been designed to be flexible and compatible with, as well as help to implement other forms of management system standards (ISO. n.d.). It assists the company and other organizations that make use of it to meet the required documentations, specified in the ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 27002. With the three components that the series has in place, the international standard can be used to improve quality management, auditing, technology, documentation, and information security (ISO. n.d.).

2. International Standard 2

The second international standard that Mosaic Company can put into practice is the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). It forms one of the oldest physical laboratories, where there is a connection between world-class science and the real-world application (De Vries, 2011). The standard has varied facilities, research portfolio and international partnerships on technology and standards. The standard has three central pillars that can be utilized to assist the company:

1. The laboratory program: this is used to measure complex challenges, ranging from very small to very large, physical to virtual and from fundamental to applied (COMMERCE.GOV. n.d.). Through the laboratory, Mosaic Company can have research done on the things that affect the operations that it is engaged in.
2. The Baldrige Performance and Excellence Program (BPEP): through this program the company has the potential to self-assessment that will help it improve the entrepreneurship, innovation and the right competitiveness in business (COMMERCE.GOV. n.d.).

      3. International Standard 3

The third international standard that applies to Mosaic Company is the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). It is a non-profit organization that has the responsibility of seeing voluntary consensus standards for products, processes, systems and services (ANSI. n.d.). The agency, although based in the United States with most of its activities there, promotes and advocates for its policy of standardization all over. It has a direct access to International Standardization Organization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standardization processes. The ANSI plays the crucial role in creating international standards that are meant to support the sales of products worldwide, hence preventing many regions to use local standards that are not tried to be viable (ANSI. n.d).

This international standardization advocates for conformity assessment that describes all the steps that have been taken by the companies to fulfill the requirements of standardization. This will help the sales and marketing company to adhere to the international standards that are recognized. Through the institute’s program of accrediting third-party product certification, Mosaic Company by complying with the rules and regulation of the Institute has the potential of being accredited certification.   

Section 5: Conclusion

The project has looked at four major parts that deal with international standards with close regard to Mosaic Company that is based in the United States and Canada. The first part is the introductory part that dealt with making known the subject matter of the project. The second part made a general overview Mosaic Company, giving many details involving location, some branches, and employees and the kind of information and records that is being handled by the company. Thirdly, the project looked at five international standards that assist in information and record management and that the sales and marketing can use for their benefit. The areas of coverage of these standards were also discussed in this section. The fourth section had the broad discussion on three international standards that also can be recommended to the sales and marketing company to use.

Applying the international standards that have been discussed in the project is essential for Mosaic Company, as it will be operating within the accepted international standards. This means that the products and services that the firm deals with will be accepted worldwide as a result of the company’s association with the international standards. In this case, the company has the potential of expanding from local regions to global areas with increased business all because of adhering to the international standardization procedures of performing its work of sales and marketing. The management of information and records by the company will be of a high class because of the involvement of international standardization institutes.

There are a lot of learned lessons in this project. Firstly, the information and the kind of records that company handles are crucial to its success, both in short and long term perspectives. Secondly, there are international standardization bodies that help to monitor and give directions in the management of information and records. These institutes give the guidance, where necessary to help the companies offer high-value products and services.