Hitesh Gupta, Iron Mountain: We expect to grow 20% y-o-y over the next 5 years”

In a one on one with PC Quest Hitesh Gupta, Managing Director, Iron Mountain – India Shares the overview of the company’s solutions portfolio and the dynamics of the overall operations.

Give us a brief on Iron Mountain and its operations globally.

Iron Mountain Incorporated is a global business dedicated to storing, protecting and managing, information and assets. With its presence across 46 countries, over 230,000 organizations across the globe trust us to store and protect information and assets. Thousands of local enterprises work with us, as does almost all of the FORTUNE 1000.

Today, Iron Mountain has around 1500 facilities globally where we manage and store critical business information to geological samples, works of fine art to original recordings of treasured artists. We are their trusted partners where our customers rely on us to protect what they value and help unlock its potential.

Iron Mountain’s solutions portfolio includes records management, data management, document management, data centres, art storage and logistics, and secure shredding helping organizations to lower storage costs, comply with regulations, recover from disaster, and better use their information. Iron Mountain is a 65-year entity; currently positioned at 8 billion dollars.

Tell us about Iron Mountain operations in India.

India is one of the key markets for us and we have been expanding our presence to strengthen our leadership position in India market. With our recent acquisition of OEC Records Management– One of India’s leading records and information Management Company, we have emerged as the market leader in India too. Iron Mountain today offers a network of 73 facilities in 15 locations in India – including Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad as the major centres– for the delivery of records and information management, data management and secure destruction services to more than 2,600 customers. We manage almost 8000 touch points in India.

We offer comprehensive records management, data protection and information destruction. We have the expertise to address complex information challenges such as rising storage costs, litigation, regulatory compliance and disaster recovery. With 18 million cubic feet of records, we store and manage information for companies across sectors like Banking, Insurance, Finance, Pharma, PSUs, Telecom, SMEs and Healthcare.

How is India market positioned in the entire gamut of IM’s business globally?

India is one of the key markets for Iron Mountain. As a part of our strategic expansion plans, we have been focusing on expanding our presence and footprints in emerging markets like India through acquisitions. The acquisitions made in India so far align with our stated objective for growing our presence in these markets to provide best-in-class service delivery, trust and security. We are looking to expand market leadership here as there are a huge potential and space for offerings like us.

Since 2013, we have successfully acquired OEC Records Management (Dec 2017), NAX and Safehouse, and the records and tape management business of ITCL(2013). With the new Government Initiatives like ‘Digital India’, PSUs would be the greatest opportunity for an organization like ours. Other sectors where I see great potential are Banking, Telecom & Mid-Market.

The growth in the last 2 years has shown that our storage space has increased from 3.9 million to 13 million. With the acquisition of OEC, it is now 18 million. The expected growth percentage or goal for next 5 years is to grow over 20% Year on Year.

Technically, how does Iron Mountain store, manage and protect information?

We have a different kind of storage systems basis the requirement. Our facilities have a very high-end environment control storage. We equip our facilities from temperature control to fire equipment inside. We also have an automatic retrieval system inside where each painting is hanging with a covered lamination and it goes inside in a temperature controlled houses and if you need, you press a button and the painting will come out.

We also provide logistics support to them in a very different way of transporting everything. Apart from the physical storage, we also provide digital storage. In the US, we do the digital conversion of 1930’s, 1940’s musical records and films which we digitize and store with us.

Who are the customers in India?

Iron Mountain works across various sectors worldwide. Our 50% business comes from the BFSI (Banking and the Financial Services) and the rest 50% is distributed amongst various other sectors like FMCG’s, ITES, Small and medium enterprises, telecom, manufacturing, healthcare and the other industries.

We help these businesses preserve their records ranging from critical information, finance, taxation and statutory records in both digital and physical format. We work with top banks and non-banking entities in India like HDFC, ICICI, Axis Bank and other top private banks. Few of our non-banking clients are in Insurance sector- ICICI Prudential, ICICI Lombard, SBI Life, NBFC- Mahindra Finance.

What challenges are you faced with in growing the market?

One of the major challenges is the lack of awareness amongst customers about Record Management and its benefits. We, at Iron Mountain, have been meeting new customers to educate them on the significance of outsourcing. Customers are looking for collaborating with an organisation, which has the expertise to handle the rapidly growing challenge of records management. The key challenges usually are:

• The need for structured management of records for compliance purposes
• The growing cost of real estate in India