Opportunity

This American multinational private, commercial bank and financial services company headquartered in New York City with locations in the United States, Latin America, and Israel was preparing for an office relocation and sought to update the bank’s retention schedules and initiate an aggressive scanning strategy to facilitate the move. The bank’s Senior Vice President – Head of Operations, was the lead for the project.

 

They comment, “The goal was to get every single piece of paper out of the building, to which we had a two-tier project plan to update our retention schedules and then scan everything into our new systems. Our CFO recommended Forrest Solutions.”

 

Forrest Solutions met with the Senior Vice President and the project team to evaluate and outline the project. Ultimately, the bank selected Forrest Solutions for the project. The bank’s SVP continues, “Forrest Solutions had the expertise we needed for the project, and every time we give them something to execute, their logistics in execution are superlative.”

 

Process

The multi-national bank was transitioning from 17 floors down to five in its current location, even before the final full relocation. The Forrest team provided an assessment, identified how many documents were in scope, and implemented an expert project manager to identify and catalogue the documents and worked closely with the firm’s vendor to establish an electronic repository. An outside partner provided the updated retention schedules.

 

The Forrest Solutions team implemented the required scanning equipment, helping the bank navigate a complex new computer system that had recently been installed, trained the scanning team, and began physical scanning at the end of Q3 of that year. Forrest Solutions’ lead project manager coordinated getting all the files off all the required floors.

 

The bank continues: “Forrest Solutions had the expertise in the logistical aspect of this. Once the retention schedules were done, Forrest had the logistical skill to create the right work load for indexing, scanning and properly tagging all documents in a cost-effective way.”

 

Within approximately five weeks, the Forrest Solutions team had scanned about a million pages. They moved scanners from HR, to Finance and to the Legal Department as needed and as per the bank’s rigorous chain of custody guidelines.

 

Results

“Being able to trust a team like Forrest Solutions to drive through this was invaluable.” The bank SVP comments. The results of the bank’s scanning project reduced the filing cabinet space by more than 90%, and facilitated the bank’s move into its new location without requiring them — ultimately affording the bank significant cost-savings.

 

Soft benefits were also accrued as the bank went from a highly paper intensive organization to a digital one. The productivity and efficiency of the bank’s professionals were greatly enhanced as they transitioned from manual search for paper documents in file cabinets, to being able to self-serve important documents at the touch of a finger in moments, creating efficiency gains internally and externally for the bank’s clients.

 

The SVP concludes: “This project was transformational for us. The Forrest Solutions team was key for the overall success. I recommend their team to any organization.