Reclamere, a leading provider of data destruction, recovery and security management services, expects to expand its staff by 10 percent in 2009, adding four new positions to its 40-person operation.
Angie Singer Keating, co-founder and vice president of compliance and security, says the positive outlook rides on a strong uptrend in requirements for data security among the 8-year-old company’s core base of clients, which she describes as “highly regulated and truly security conscious.”
They include health services–“a ton of hospital work” related to requirements of the Health Information Privacy Act, which don’t slow down in a recession–banks, and colleges and universities. Almost every major company, school district, and university in Pittsburgh relies on Reclamere to scrub and recycle computer hard-drives, a service the company provides through a secure computer recycling center where it applies a proprietary process to remove data from as many as 1,200 hard drives in an 8-hour cycle.
A flight to quality also works in Reclamere’s favor, Keating says, particularly in serving clients in banking and financial services.
“I expect to see a huge transition in the data destruction and recycling end of our business,” she says. “The bottom-feeders will go away.”
On that list she cites solo-operators that advertise behind Internet storefronts with a promise of services far beyond home-basement capabilities–and the convicted felon who offers to recycle computers for incautious businesses and individuals.
Low-cost security providers often make money from the resale of equipment without removing data–or, worse, by selling it for the data it contains. That’s only one breach of security that data-laden company’s face in a worldwide black market for identify theft and network intrusion, as a constant drumbeat of news stories–such as this one in the Washington Post–makes clear.
In these times then, Keating says, data protection services, and a growing demand for data forensics, are likely to be easier to sell by a company such as Reclamere, which performs all work with a bonded staff, using no outside subcontractors, each of whom has passed extensive background checks.
Source: Reclamere, Angie Singer Keating
Writer: Joseph Plummer
To receive Keystone Edge free every week, click here.
