CASE STUDY

HighQ helps a corporate legal team in a global bank

Explore a hybrid intranet and knowledge sharing solution

See how one of HighQ鈥檚 clients, a global bank, uses HighQ鈥檚 collaboration platform. The bank鈥檚 Head of Knowledge Management (KM) explains why the company chose HighQ and how the system enables his department to revolutionize internal collaboration and strengthen relationships with its legal panel firms. The client is the legal department of a multinational bank and financial services firm that provides support and legislative oversight to the company鈥檚 banking and retail departments.

The challenge: Connecting thousands of lawyers across jurisdictions

With more than 1,000 people in the in-house legal team, HighQ鈥檚 client is a massive organization with lawyers across many jurisdictions. The client鈥檚 Head of KM explains how the organization struggled with information silos: 鈥淚n our legacy intranet we had separate domains for different teams, which meant that knowledge was siloed across the business. Certain teams couldn鈥檛 access other teams鈥 intranet sites, and even our central database wasn鈥檛 accessible to all users globally.鈥

The company sought a solution that could be a central point of access for every person within the organization. 鈥淗ighQ Collaborate appealed to me because it is globally accessible,鈥 the Head of KM explains. 鈥淯nlike our existing on-premise solutions like SharePoint, HighQ Collaborate is cloud-based so the same information can be accessed by anyone from anywhere in the world. This was really important to us as we are a global organization working with teams across a universal bank and external law firms in multiple jurisdictions.鈥

The solution: A hybrid intranet/knowledge sharing solution

HighQ offered a complete solution that would allow the bank鈥檚 legal department to keep the large number of teams within the organization connected. 鈥淔or us, HighQ Collaborate is a sort of hybrid between an intranet and a knowledge base,鈥 the Head of KM says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 where we store all our data, documents and information, such as training handbooks, but also where our teams can share knowledge and contribute to each other鈥檚 projects. Our knowledge base site forms part of our initiative to bring teams together in one place and provide them with information that everyone can access.鈥

The legal department have found their own unique way of using the platform which works for them, as the Head of KM describes: 鈥淚nstead of setting up separate sites for each team, we can keep everyone in one big site and assign each team a section of the wiki. We have broken the wiki module down into team hubs, so each team gets a top level page and sub-pages where they can link to documents, provide background information and access training materials specific to that team.鈥

鈥淲e use Collaborate鈥檚 advanced permissioning controls to ensure that only authorized users have access to information in particular hubs of the wiki,鈥 explains the Head of KM. 鈥淚t鈥檚 easier to do it this way than setting up separate sites because it鈥檚 less challenging to administer. Using system-level groups, we can simply set permissions on what access is given to each group of users, and this can be easily altered to give more or less access if necessary on a wiki-by-wiki basis.鈥

Separate sites are reserved for individual projects, and these are used more deeply than the knowledge base, as the Head of KM explains: 鈥淲hen it comes to specific regulatory projects, project teams set up sites where they have discussions using the social tools, store documents in the Files modules and create project trackers using iSheets. The project trackers are particularly useful as they get filled in as people reach different stages in the project, and each separate project tracker feeds into one main tracking iSheet for all of the legal projects going on within our team.鈥

The result: Connected teams, both internally and externally

The Head of KM describes the benefit for the organization now that users have begun working in one unified platform: 鈥淐ollaborate enables teams to share knowledge across jurisdictions and offices and actually know where the information is going. It鈥檚 not just flying off into the ether or being forgotten in untouched folders on a dusty hard drive. It鈥檚 going to specific people but is also constantly accessible by anyone else who needs it.鈥

As well as aiding internal communication, HighQ enables the client to share knowledge with external parties too. 鈥淲e work with a large network of external vendors and panel law firms,鈥 explains the Head of KM. 鈥淭hey can add information directly into Collaborate, which means they can feed in specific useful information to appropriate discussions or projects as they happen, instead of sending or receiving deluges of information in one go via email. Our extranet users can engage with us just as easily as our internal users, which really breaks down the barriers of communication and helps us work as a joined-up team.鈥

When it came to getting people to start using the system, the Head of KM admits it wasn鈥檛 as easy at first. 鈥淯sage of Collaborate built very slowly at first, but it鈥檚 reaching critical mass now. The biggest barrier initially was having the login page but since we made the switch to single sign on we鈥檝e seen a marked increase in people using the platform. We鈥檙e working hard to find new ways to get people engaged; we鈥檝e listened to specific problems users are having and helping them to solve them and we鈥檙e periodically speaking to teams and offering training.鈥

The Head of KM explains that although the platform is user-friendly by nature, there are a few tweaks they have made to help make the platform more familiar to their users. 鈥淲e heavily branded the site with our branding, renamed some of the modules (wikis are called Pages or Team Hubs and blogs are called Updates) and we have structured each wiki page with breadcrumb trails so that it鈥檚 really easy for users to navigate the content. We鈥檝e got plans for how we want to develop the wikis further to make them an even more useful resource.鈥

Conclusion: Revolutionizing relationships with legal panel firms
The Head of KM believes that HighQ has already changed the way the company鈥檚 teams access information and share knowledge with one another, but says that it has real potential to revolutionize the organization鈥檚 relationships with legal panel firms: 鈥淔or us, Collaborate really is the Swiss Army knife of tools. It is so flexible, we can use it for almost everything when it comes to collaborating internally and externally. It has enabled us to create an interconnected relationship with our panel firms, which has helped them become more deeply embedded within our legal teams where they work closely together.鈥

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