Case Studies and White Papers

• My ECM Implementation Failed - Now What?

  IT Projects are notorious for having low success rates without proper Project Management. Only 32% of all projects succeed with on time delivery, within budget, and with required features and functions. Some of the best software products in the world have failed to meet client’s expectations because the salesperson set unrealistic expectancies or the implementation time was shortened in order to meet a magic budget number.

• 7 tips to getting a 360 degree view of your customers.

  Of course you would. Customer interactions start with basic content such as images, an email message, an application, or e-form. Over time they evolve into unique, ever-changing “cases” involving human judgment, with process and decisions flowing to meet specific requirements. Get 7 tips that will aid you in learning about your customers’ interactions and help you improve services to them.

• Tame the high-volume records management beast.

  It’s ironic that although electronic records are the most voluminous records in any organization, they are the most difficult to manage with current records management solutions — if they are managed at all. In an electronic records environment, traditional records management solutions that rely on manual processes fall short. Learn how a records management system adequate for retrieving, processing, and archiving several thousand records per day becomes costly and unwieldy when applied to several million transactional records per day.

• Creating a digital HR records management environment.
  Human Resource documents contain some of an organization’s most sensitive and vulnerable information. Cost containment, compliance regulations, and accessibility are the key drivers accelerating the adoption of digital HR records management solutions. But creating a fully digital HR records management environment can be a monumental and expensive undertaking. By asking potential service providers the right questions up-front, companies can ensure that the solution they choose will deliver the return on investment and level of compliance risk management their company demands.
• ERM – It’s changing, but is it under control?

  With a highly digital work environment, everyone is somehow involved with records and information management. The need to manage change is critical yet the magnitude of these changes is often underestimated resulting in diminished outcomes. This paper outlines change management best practices, including the importance of clearly defining enterprise records management (ERM) program goals, and how change management can contribute to better design, and user acceptance.

• Don't keep everything.

  Enormous volumes of paper continue to be generated as an integral part of daily business. Operating in this hybrid paper and digital environment requires a strict retention policy. In this guide, Frost & Sullivan offers a step-by-step approach to electronic content record retention.

• Content integration to the rescue!

  Organizations are under increasing pressure to do more with less. Keeping content in multiple repositories contributes to corporate risk and exposure. The time is ripe to consolidate content from multiple, disparate repositories by utilizing an open architecture based on standard web services to ensure interoperability across applications and computing platforms. This method provides fast, easy, and secure access to all content stored anywhere in an organization.

• Selecting an ERM system? Consider these things.

  Explore the selection process for an ERM that will enable industry best practice records management. This paper discusses the distinction between “records” and other types of information to clarify what is to be managed, what an ERM is, and how to scope a project and plan an ERM program based on the organization’s business domain, goals, and objectives.

• Compliance made simple.

  Over time, business records accumulate and the cost of storing them mounts. To keep records manageable, control costs, and be compliant with applicable laws and regulations, companies must periodically purge records they are no longer required to keep. The challenge is, which records—if any—may be purged, and when?

• Why is managing the lifecycle of your content critical?

  From the moment a customer communication is started, whether it’s a recordable telephone conversation, email, letter, or correspondence note, it is discoverable. Managing all this information from the point of creation through the iterative processes to disposal greatly simplifies the discovery process. Information is the lifeblood of your organization. Are you managing it correctly? Find out...

• It’s raining content. Is your organization drowning?

  The rising tide of enterprise content is typically scattered around the globe - in disparate repositories, on different platforms, and in many different formats. Research shows that this content is growing by as much as 200% per year, and the risks of managing it ineffectively are growing even faster. Architecture that offers scalability, flexibility, and interoperability without limits is critical to addressing an enterprise’s total content.

• To scan or not to scan. That is the question.

  As businesses face the challenges of hybrid records, options have become highly polarized. Don’t be driven to one of two solution extremes—maintain the paper “status quo” or “image everything.” A paperless Camelot doesn’t exist, but there are more attractive options that leverage the cost-effectiveness of physical storage with the convenience of digital delivery.

• It’s all about consistency when it comes to an effective records management policy.

  Consistency takes many forms, but primarily relates to the design and implementation of policies for records retention, disposal and holds across media types, geography and business units. Consistency is also critical for information privacy, policies and procedures. Organizations must understand that consistent policies form the backbone of any compliant records management program.

• Do your business records tell the full story?

  Every record has a transaction story with the rules that govern access, distribution, tracking, amendment, and version control. The process of classification, groups records in a sequence of related transactions that tell a story of what happened and in what order. It enables records to be managed more effectively by placing control at the transaction rather than document level by using the concept of inheritance and relationship. This removes the burden of complex record keeping from individual users and offers authenticity of records.

• How to better manage environment, health and safety documents.

  A well-known global chemical manufacturer faced daunting challenge of growing SAP DB size due to EH&S (Environment, Health and Safety) documents (RTF formatted) stored in SAP database. These documents were stored in SAP DMS (Data Management System).

• ILM and growth management in SAP retail.

  Retail by nature has a somewhat shortened Information Life Cycle (ILM). Other than tax, regulatory and financial reporting requirements that remain consistent in most North American companies, the vast amount of POS, pricing, inventory, delivery, and sales data have a relatively short life time. Consider a carton of milk versus some other manufactured good like farm equipment. As a result many retailers can be aggressive in their implementation of archiving and data management on some fast growing SAP tables.

• Legal is calling. Does your IT department know what to do?

  If your organization hasn’t implemented a data archiving and retention policy, it’s time to huddle together and get it done – before there’s an issue and legal is on the phone to your IT department.

• What are the skeletons in your data closet?

  Your database may not be big, but it may be old. Compliance, data retention, and information lifecycle management are important factors to consider when implementing any data archiving product. This case study illustrates the importance of finding the “skeletons in your closet” prior to an implementation.p>
• When was your last IRS audit?

  Understanding your audit requirements is an important factor in receiving a good audit. As the growth in data is becoming more and more difficult to avoid, there are opportunities to think about how best to effectively and responsibly manage your data and storage resources.

• Engaging Retail Customers with SAP

  In this case study, learn how a retail customer with an industry-specific solution for integration with their SAP installation was experiencing excessive database records growth. And, the growth was occurring as a result of several data activities including Customer Relationship Management, Business Intelligence/Warehousing, and Point-of-Sale (POS).

• Go ahead. Send that fax. But make sure you’re compliant.

  As businesses go paperless, the need to secure, track, and store information for compliance purposes is critical, and fax communications are no different. Learn the steps you can take to make your organization compliant.

• Getting started with an enterprise-wide information management strategy.

  Business today relies on three fundamental elements: people, processes and content. Ultimately people are the most important. But, the capture, distribution, consumption and protection of information require integration and interoperability to meet the needs of the business. Find out how to start and what you need to consider to be successful.

• Employees waste 2 hours a day looking for information.

  According to an IDC report, the amount of enterprise data doubles every 18 months, with 35 percent of the data being subject to regulatory compliance or e-discovery. But the problem doesn’t stop there. Data overload also has an impact on productivity levels, with employees wasting on average more than two hours every day looking for information.  Produced in conjunction with CIO Magazine, this white paper focuses on how categorization can improve speed and accuracy while reducing the cost of information management.

• The one-stop search shop for today’s Web 2.0 world.

  With data volumes increasing significantly in the past decade, as well as an increase in the complexity of online research, Macfarlanes LLP, a knowledge intensive law firm with 75 partners and more than 300 lawyers, wanted to manage a wealth of information, from case-related documents to advice given to clients. Learn how they developed an enterprise search strategy, and revamped their intranet to provide a unified ‘Google like’ search experience that afforded users with one universal point of access to information and knowledge.

• How the RICS saved over $300,000 in manual processing costs in the first year.

  The regulation of land, property, construction and associated environmental issues is a process- and paper-intensive industry. The is a story about the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors and their need for an investigation and case management solution to answer demands for greater auditing and transparency. Find out about their journey to an integrated and accessible solution for tracking and managing all case-related documents and correspondence including emails, scanned images, faxes, letters, and phone calls.

• Building a comprehensive search infrastructure.

  In this implementation case study, you’ll learn how Clifford Chance, a global law firm with 6,000 lawyers and business services staff in 29 offices spread in 20 countries made the decision to move to a comprehensive, enterprise-wide search infrastructure to improve the ability to search simultaneously across the firm’s knowledge resources.

• Why Information Governance is now a board-level issue.

  Enterprises have always had a requirement to preserve documents and records for the long term to satisfy compliance, legal and knowledge management requirements. The history of records management is centuries old and has previously been concerned primarily with managing paper documents. In the last decade however there has been a dramatic switch from paper to the use of a wide range of electronic media as a preferred method of the communication within businesses. In addition to the growth of electronic information, executives in every sector, both public and private have seen a huge increase in regulation and legislative responsibilities in the last eight to ten years. This paper highlights major legislative and regulatory implications.

• Is there such a thing as information governance in SharePoint?

  The rapid proliferation of SharePoint has led many companies to lose control of the very content they had hoped to better manage. In the wake of new regulations, credit crisis, and highly publicized internal fraud cases, it has become essential for organizations to consistently implement information policies for finding, holding and disposing of content in a timely manner. Find out how to empower users to manage their SharePoint content in true alignment with today’s growing corporate, legal and regulatory standards.

• Adaptive Case Management - comparing document-centric and customer-centric approaches
  General purpose ECM and DM systems may lack the functionality and process flexibility needed to deal with case management, and integration with a CRM system may be needed to handle the communications aspects. However, recent developments have introduced the concept of dynamic or adaptive case management within ECM systems, able to manage the case-process workflow in a flexible way, and able to link with multiple customer communications channels.  
   
  In this report, we survey how well the IT infrastructure currently used by customer-centric, process-driven suppliers matches the demands of case management, and look at their planned strategies for the future