Adjamian Affiliated

Laserfiche offers financial services firm endless growth potential In the world of finance, managing even a single department's documents can be an arduous task. When four disparate departments merge, however, managing the ensuing amalgamation of client records takes on a life of its own. For Christina Bacon, client records manager for Fortis Guernsey, taming the paper monster proved a considerable challenge. But through thorough, thoughtful planning, and with the help of Laserfiche digital document management, staff at Fortis Guernsey now enjoy the familiarity of their former paper-based business processes-accelerated at the speed of today's technology.

Part of a multinational financial services firm, Fortis Guernsey formed when four separate institutions-the Private Bank, Trust and Corporate Services, Private Client Services (tax advisory) and Investment Management departments-all moved into a new office building. Christina assumed the responsibility of consolidating each institution's paperwork into a unified, enterprise-wide system. There was a catch, however: not only did each department have its own well-established business processes, but government and industry regulations dictated that each department's documents be kept out of the others' view.

As Christina explains, maintaining the separation between the four institutions while deploying an enterprise solution was no easy feat. "We needed a system that could meet everyone's needs without shaking up their existing ways of working," she says.

Fortis Guernsey looked at five different solutions to this complex challenge, but one stood out immediately from the rest. "We could easily see how we would be able to connect our existing systems to Laserfiche," Christina says. "It's like a bottomless pit-by which I mean that you can keep on expanding it." Laserfiche's intuitive interface didn't hurt, either. "It's Windows®-based, so it's very easy to use."

In many cases, optimizing business processes means carefully persuading management to invest in technology. But at Fortis Guernsey, obtaining staff buy-in was as essential, if not more so, than convincing decision makers of Laserfiche's potential. Says Christina, "We anticipated resistance, because everyone likes to have their own paper files in their hands. That's why we went to each department, asking, 'How would you set it up? How will you be searching for files?' We wanted staff to know that this was their system, not something shoved down their throats."

To satisfy these diverse departmental needs, Christina adopted a somewhat unusual filing structure. Instead of indexing documents in an extensive folder tree, Fortis Guernsey employs a more freeform, template-based organization scheme. As Christina explains, "We didn't want to create hundreds and hundreds of folders, but we didn't want to retrieve hundreds of documents at once, either. To maintain each department's existing workflow, we created templates that would allow staff to find files the way they normally would. But rather than creating templates for each document type, we created them for each department, with a file structure as a second layer."

Each department's template contains a number of fields, such as client name, account number and document type, by which staff can search for what they need. Thanks to a strictly-defined labeling system, staff can also use keywords to narrow their searches. And while it may be slightly unorthodox, this approach has been very successful, given that staff can find documents using Laserfiche's search capabilities much more quickly than they could by navigating a rigid folder structure. And it helps with compliance, too. "It's important that trust company staff, for example, can't view banking documents. Template-specific security ensures that different departments can't view each other's documents," Christina says.

To further streamline each department's workflow, Fortis Guernsey has configured its billing system to upload each day's transactional information directly into Laserfiche, where it's indexed by client number. In addition, the banking department has integrated its primary software with Laserfiche, so clients can view their account documents securely over the Web.

As impressive as these efficiency gains is the marked decrease in paper-related costs. In the last two and a half years, staff have scanned nearly eight million images into the Laserfiche repository. "We've created a separate scanning bureau," she says, "but we still see a tremendous cost savings because of reduced filing labor and storage space costs." And that's not to mention the 80 percent reduction in paper consumption.

Alongside business process improvements and cost savings, Fortis Guernsey appreciates Laserfiche's contribution to its disaster recovery plan. "We're required to resume operations within 24 hours of a disaster," Christina says. "When we did a simulated disaster recovery, our mirrored Laserfiche server was back up and running straight away, and everyone went to Laserfiche first to recover information. Were we to experience a real disaster, life would go on, and our clients would be none the wiser."

Next on the slate for Christina: Refining the Laserfiche installations in the HR and Risk departments. She'll have to create new templates and access rights for more sensitive documents, and to preserve document integrity, these departments will scan their own documents, rather than using the scanning bureau. But by following the same development model she used with other departments, she says, these expansions will go quite smoothly. "It's very easy to plan for implementation, because Laserfiche is a very adaptable system," she notes.

Indeed, Laserfiche's flexibility proved its worth when it came time to import data from Fortis Guernsey's existing DOS-based systems. Staff now access these four million electronic documents, dating back to 1979, from the same intuitive interface they use to view scanned paper documents.

In addition to bringing new departments on board, Christina is set to embark on a major journey: migrating documents to Laserfiche Records Management EditionT (RME). As an international corporation, Fortis is subject to myriad records management mandates, and the retention periods for the many kinds of records it handles are diverse. Notes Christina, "Trust company records are especially complicated, because trusts can last for hundreds of years-but you can't keep every piece of paper."

Addressing these records management challenges will mean modifying the Laserfiche repository's template-based organization. Christina wants to ensure a smooth transition to RME, such that staff don't realize that documents are moving into records folders. Because the entire Laserfiche platform is highly customizable, she feels certain that she'll achieve this goal of transparent records management.

Future plans not withstanding, Fortis Guernsey staff enjoy the benefits that Laserfiche has brought every day. In fact, Laserfiche has become part of the training program for new employees. "When new staff come on board," Christina says, "Laserfiche is part of their initiation. It's nice to show them something that they can get into straight away, with no intimidation. Laserfiche has become everyone's everyday tool-it's been absolutely fantastic."