While Rothschild's bankers worked effectively as individual working groups, the inability to access and share financial models, agreements, reports, and market data made it difficult to collaborate on deals with others in the firm, to pass work among analysts, or simply to ensure that different product groups were coordinated in their coverage of clients. Remedying the situation required a document management and collaboration system built the way Rothschild's bankers worked. "Users these days tend to be glued to their email and the Internet, so whatever system we used had to link effectively with both," continues Kaiser.
He chose to deploy Interwoven's WorkSite product, "a collaborative document management platform that was built from [the] ground up using Microsoft technologies — COM, ASP, .NET — enabling you to fully leverage existing investments in Microsoft-based applications and technologies." The system was first installed in Rothschild's investment banking division in 2001, extended in 2002 to aid collaboration with realty and asset management, and is now being run to extranets that share information with clients, partner companies, and investors. By capturing deal and client information in a single repository, WorkSite helps manage risk and meet regulatory compliance standards.
Kaiser believes that the system not only keeps them compliant, and equips them to deal with investigations when they occur, but also adds to their competitive advantage. "I asked our analysts how they'd feel if I took WorkSite away. Their response was, 'you can't!'", he says.
This, then, is a happy marriage of two worlds — compliance and strategy. For at its best, document management should not only help a bank to tick off the necessary boxes, but should make for a better run business.
