Client

Nord/LB, one of Lithuania’s largest banks

 Challenge

NORD/LB, having acquired a local bank, began to reorganize it. Before reorganization, the Bank had been using legacy messaging and a groupware system based on Lotus Notes. The system was mainly used for exchanging e-mails and storing board-meeting notes, bank regulations and registering correspondence. However, only the central headquarters had full client installations, whilst remote units had lesser amounts of user licenses, due to the considerable system expansion costs.

Whilst using the Lotus Notes platform, the bank faced the following main challenges: information fragmentation amongst different workspaces, resulting in inconvenience and time-consuming searches; a degrading performance in regard to information upload and retrieval, this relating to the increasing size of their database; and limited customisation capabilities, requiring specific administrative knowledge. In addition, the bank wanted to have “thin client” installations wherever possible, giving its employees the possibility to access vital information from any working place within the organization and using only a web browser.

 Solution

While considering the alternatives to Lotus Notes, the bank was looking for a well performing, flexible, adequately supported and competitively priced solution. After investigating available opportunities, the decision was made to migrate the Lotus Notes platform to DocLogix (information management part) and Exchange (messaging part). The project was carried out by our company and DocLogix UAB, including not only the change of systems, but also the consulting and migration services. Alna Business Solutions performed the implementation of DocLogix.

The integration of DocLogix with Exchange/Outlook did not deprive users from any of the functionality that they had had with Lotus Notes. In contrary, users got more functionality, for example, integration with Active Directory, extended email/attachment capturing capabilities and more. The clear distinction between the two systems also ensures that users get the most up-to-date functionality both from document management and messaging systems.

As a result, Nord/LB received benefits such as timesavings for staff on information management tasks, an increased decision-making speed, a decentralized system administration and a growing automation of daily business processes. By providing the entire bank document hierarchy in a single window, DocLogix provides users with a coherent and clear view of information, substantially cutting the time required for locating information and managing tasks, it also maximizes the possibilities for sharing information across different units. With the new system, users are proactively informed about new or overdue tasks, new documents or new versions – letting employees concentrate on decision-making instead of searching for information to validate that decision.

A growing number of bank units can now optimise and automate their daily operations, due to the flexibility and wide customisation capabilities of the new document management system. Starting from customized data entry forms and views to custom-build workflows, all these functions can be performed by staff that lack a deep technological knowledge. This gives the bank dynamism and a competitive advantage, as decisions to improve business operations can now be decentralized and given to units. With little or no assistance from third parties, staff can quickly build mini solutions, which, when combined, can lead to large improvements in performance.

 Technology

 MS Exchange and DocLogix-DMS solution, based on .NET platform