As a result, the bank has cut its costs, is more efficient and ultimately provides a better service to customers. Besides providing more efficient management of documents and dossiers, this solution has optimised the underlying operational process. Involving the migration of 14 central applications, this major operation has now been completed.

Every year many thousands of documents flow through Dexia via a variety of channels and in different formats. These documents must also be consulted and handled by around 1,500 staff. That is why an electronic archiving operation has been under way now for several years, with the scanning of millions of documents. Because the different Dexia departments and the bank’s applications required an easily adaptable software solution, the bank was looking for another platform – one which would be more powerful and offer enhanced digitisation as well as case management. The solution had to run on a web server rather than over a client-server infrastructure.

In 2004, Dexia selected Case Manager from Global 360. This application is a management tool for digitisation, processes and cases, otherwise known as a BPM (Business Process Management) solution. Case Manager is both a digitisation tool and management software enabling the whole workflow to be monitored. This is a dynamic process, under which a document's whole lifecycle can be managed. The status and progress of the cases can be monitored and, when new documents are created, the solution can even "by default" send out the tasks that have still to be done, notably in the case of authorisations or missing documents.

In total, 14 banking applications had to be migrated to this new application. In May 2004, the first application (accounts closure) was transferred successfully. This transfer included the design of an architecture that was later used as a basic structure for all other migrations.

By the start of 2006, the whole project was completed. Pieter Verlinden, project manager at Dexia, said: "The first migrations took some time and effort. But we were able to capitalise on them afterwards. As we use templates, we were able to quickly produce the new applications. We also brought together some old applications, thus reducing the number of applications. So we will be able to complete the migration with far fewer man-hours than was initially foreseen."

Among the other applications migrated, special mention should be made of the loans, international transfers, expenses notes, order forms and part of the management of the buildings.

Around 4.5 million documents, kept in 2.4 million dossiers, can now be consulted by some 1,500 staff at Dexia headquarters. Everyday more than 10,000 documents are consulted. Case Manager makes use of Casefolders, which are "virtual folders" containing all the data about a customer or a specific mission. The great thing about Case Manager is that the solution was integrated without problem into Dexia's existing IT architecture. Users do not notice the transition between the mainframe and the Case Manager database. Moreover, thanks to the FOXE interface developed by Dexia, all documents can be consulted quickly and easily. The main advantage of this configuration is that users need only work with a single system to consult both the digitised documents and the dossiers and tasks. As a result, they do not have to look for documents and there are significant time savings.

Thanks to the BPM solution from Global 360, Dexia can also optimise its management of the workflow or ensure the rapid handling of dossiers by the relevant departments. For the "succession" application, the Global 360 consultants have developed – in collaboration with Dexia's IT department – a workflow-management process. In the event of someone's death, the inheritance or file-handling application is complex, involving several departments within Dexia. The bank made use of this application's migration to extend the workflow possibilities. For example, a manual and automatic dispatching system was foreseen to transfer the dossiers and tasks to the most appropriate person. For each task, a Dexia staff member is selected on the basis of several parameters, such as presence (not on holiday or ill) and the tasks that they have already been given.

Says Pieter Verlinden, project manager at Dexia: "The migration encouraged us not only to improve the management of Dexia's business process for the handling of morbidity dossiers but also to reform and optimise them. So for us, BPR (Business Process Reengineering) and BPM went hand in hand."

Philippe Bodart, Global 360 Benelux regional manager, adds that he too is satisfied: "The collaboration between Dexia and Global 360 for this large-scale migration was also an invaluable experience for us. Thanks to this implementation and the support of Dexia's IT department, we were even able to improve our software tool."

Today, all the Dexia headquarters staff enjoy access to the system. The goal is also to open up some applications to the bank's branches in 2006. At the end of 2005, a pilot project was notably launched for the "succession" application. By calling on a CITRIX system, the branches' staff will have 24-hour access to the system and be able to consult the documents directly. This will speed up considerably the decision-making for handling the morbidity dossiers.