“DocBanq has allowed Austcorp to come together as an organisation – this unifying tool has enabled Austcorp to function with a level of sophistication that was not previously possible.”
Nell Rollinson, Administration Manager
 

Summary

Austcorp Group Limited is a diverse property developer and investor. Founded in 1991 in Sydney Australia, Austcorp now have three main offices and several sales offices over four Australian states, with a development portfolio exceeding A$2 Billion.Austcorp has three main areas of business – property development, funds management and property investment – which operate in a highly regulated environment with significant compliance and reporting requirements.  Austcorp’s activities require the specialised expertise of close to 150 highly trained personnel, a diverse range of external partners and consultants and a sound business framework.

By selecting DocBanq, Austcorp established company-wide processes and structures for managing all documents and records, including email – greatly increasing compliance transparency and radically improving information retrieval and collaboration, both internally and with external parties.  As a part of the implementation, a specific requirement was identified to establish an Online Data Room, with tightly controlled secure access for key Austcorp personnel, and external lawyers, bankers and advisors.

DocBanq has proven to be exceptionally easy-to-use, fast and scalable, with powerful features that support compliance and collaboration in ways not previously possible.

The Challenge

Austcorp’s high-end property development, funds management and investment activities operate in a complex and highly regulated environment and rely on professional and experienced personnel and a sound business framework.  The cornerstone of any business framework is a document and records management system, and with Austcorp’s rapid growth over the last few years, it was becoming clear the existing methods of managing the organisation’s documents and records – paper files, network drives, Intranet, email, etc – were becoming increasingly inefficient and restrictive.

Austcorp’s goals for the new document and records management system were:

• To manage electronic and paper records to records management standards, such as ISO15489
• To establish the one company-wide electronic document and records management system for all material - replacing the numerous network drives, email repositories and the paper filing system
• To introduce scanning of incoming correspondence for electronic distribution and filing.
• To allow the secure collaboration upon and retrieval of electronic documentation, including external development partners and consultants for development projects. 

Austcorp, like many organisations, had a variety of IT tools to address its information management requirements. 

Each of the three main offices, and the several sales offices, had multiple network drives – these drives could be shared however access between offices was slow and frustrating, and like most network drives, features such as version control and rapid searching were not available.  Also, it was impractical to enforce a consistent folder structure between the different offices, making it difficult for those unfamiliar with any given structure to find information.

Microsoft Outlook is used as the email client however many users had the practice of storing large amounts of email in private Inboxes, hindering visibility of key corporate issues by others and making it difficult to manage these important records when personnel left the organisation.

Physical mail was typically received by each office, often requiring redirection to other offices within the Austcorp group, with increases in delays and the risk of loss.  The use of physical paper files was extensive with all the usual frustrations – difficult to access and to share, no searching and often not complete as e-documents and email were usually not printed to a paper file.

The Intranet has proven to be a useful resource for Austcorp personnel, however much better suited to relatively static content rather than as a method of distributing documentation that might be regularly updated.

Document collaboration with external parties was generally performed using email, however due to the difficulties in keeping track of versions, lack of security with unencrypted email and the inability to email large files, Austcorp had experimented with Microsoft Sharepoint and Aconex with mixed results.

“Austcorp has grown rapidly in the last few years, and even though there was a desire from many different parts of the organisation for a document and records management solution, concern of disruption to the business and the lack of a simple but appropriate solution meant that it had been repeatedly delayed” said Nell Rollinson, Administration Manager.

The Solution

Austcorp installed DocBanq On-Demand as the foundation information management tool with the mandate to develop the one document and records management system for the entire organisation.  Austcorp’s key requirements for the selection of DocBanq included:

• Ease-of-use and deployment
• Performance and scalability
• Security and reliability
• Installation within cost and elapsed time estimates

 A project schedule was established to:

• Develop the common folder hierarchy, file structures and security model
• Develop records management policy and processes
• Migrate the network drives, email holdings and register existing paper files
• Develop processes for ad-hoc scanning and the routine scanning of incoming paper correspondence
• Train internal and external personnel, and establish support processes 

DocBanq project-managed the implementation which rolled DocBanq On-Demand out to the various offices over a three month period, including migration of the network drives. Access to DocBanq On-Demand was established via the Austcorp Intranet, dedicated pages of the Austcorp Extranet and via DocBanq’s home page.

The Results

Austcorp has been able to quickly and easily establish DocBanq as the primary collaborative document and records management system, replacing a variety of network drives, email caches and Intranets in multiple offices, and allowing the paper recordkeeping system to be phased out.  Managing records to meet compliance requirements is now easier as records-management personnel have global visibility and can more easily implement company-wide information management policies and procedures.

All personnel can securely access, where authorised, documents and records from any office or from any location with Internet connectivity, with exceptional performance and useability.  Powerful searches can be performed almost instantly that previously might have taken hours or even days.

Paper correspondence is being progressively scanned and distributed to the addressee electronically, with the electronic rendition eventually being placed upon a DocBanq file and the paper copy marked for destruction.

Development Projects have strongly benefited from the ability to version control project documentation and to be able to allow partners and consultants from other organisations direct and secure access for collaboration.  An Online Data Room was established with secure access for key Austcorp personnel and advisors.

Austcorp has an outcome-driven culture that has little tolerance for ‘good ideas’ without practical benefits.  Feedback from users, both internal and external, has been extremely positive with a view that DocBanq provides a very easy-to-use and powerful solution to managing Austcorp’s documents and records, with exceptional performance from any location.

“The implementation exposed a number of inconsistencies in our processes that did need to be resolved however DocBanq has been embraced wholeheartedly and feedback has been excellent” concluded Nell.

Web:  www.austcorp.com.au