Danversbank

Established in 1850, Danversbank is a one-billion dollar financial institution operating 13 full-service locations across Essex, Middlesex and Suffolk Counties. The bank is an acknowledged leader in commercial and small business lending, is consistently ranked “Outstanding” by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) for its community reinvestment activities, and was named one of Massachusetts’ “Best Places to Work” by the Boston Business Journal in 2005.

Danversbank was looking for a way to easily and cost-effectively share large confidential financial files with its Board of Directors, who needed to access the files at home, or on the road. Distribution via overnight delivery services was too costly and sending documents via email required too much download time, particularly for board members with dial up Internet connections at home.

The bank also wanted to improve knowledge management in its day-today operations. Distributing documents on policies, regulations, procedures, rate changes and so on via email was placing a tremendous burden on the bank’s email server.

Danversbank was also seeking to improve its response time for acting on new business opportunities, based on intelligence coming into headquarters from its branch offices.

Finally, Danversbank management was looking for a better way to track and communicate to employees opportunities for volunteer work in the community.

Danversbank is now using WebEx WebOffice to facilitate secure, cost-effective online sharing of confidential financial documents with its Board of Directors and to improve knowledge management and response time in its day-to-day operations.

“We’ve been using WebEx WebOffice, formerly known as Intranets.com, since September of 2003, and its contribution to productivity has been substantial. We keep finding new ways we can use it to help facilitate our business,” says Cheryl French, Corporate Communications Manager.

“In a typical week, about 75-80% of our 250 employees visit our WebOffice. They use it as both a work resource — accessing documents and other files — and a way to learn what’s happening around the bank. And employees are now learning to use the ‘Favorites’ and ‘My Links’ features, which allow them to use the system as their own personal portal, storing links to other frequently-accessed websites,” says French.

Danversbank uses the WebOffice Document Manager, Announcements and Database Manager everyday, throughout its operations.

"In a typical week, about 75-80% of our 250 employees visit our WebOffice. They use it as both a work resource - accessing documents and other files - and a way to learn what’s happening around the bank."

- Cheryl French, Corporate Communications Manager

“We have about 30 Folders in our WebOffice Document Manager and those folders contain hundreds of active documents shared on a permissions and password-protected basis,” says French. In the Board of Director’s Folder, Danversbank posts the minutes from meetings, agendas and documents to be reviewed prior to Board meetings - all confidential files that can be quite large. Board members can now access these documents online and at their convenience, from any PC, to prepare for a Board meeting.

Danversbank has about 60 policies that govern the way the Bank does business that are shared in the WebOffice Policies Folder. Formerly, when there was an update to a policy, every department received a paper copy of the update and was told to replace existing pages with the new updated pages. Since all of the bank’s policies are up for renewal on an annual basis, this process represented significant paperwork, and a lot of time and effort.

“Obviously, WebOffice provides a much better solution for updates. For instance, we just used the Announcement function on our WebOffice Home Page to say: ‘The Harassment Policy has been updated; click on the attached link to read the latest version,’” French said.

“Using our WebOffice this way gives us three advantages: People don’t have to keep the paper files anymore; they don’t worry that their copy is not up-to-date; and we can notify people immediately of any change in our documentation.”

For example, the Bank’s Forms folder contains 100 different forms employees use within the Bank and while servicing customers - anything from a Change of Address form that they give to a customer, to a Direct Deposit form for payroll. Regardless of when the last change was, an employee can pull a copy of a form off WebOffice at a moment’s notice, and know that he or she is getting the most current version.

Danversbank also uses the WebOffice Document Manager to post Rate Changes for tellers, Customer Service Reps and other Bank personnel. A form’s title shows up under a What’s New column on the WebOffice Home Page when it’s updated so employees know there has been a change right away.

“There are so many Bank activities that are enhanced by the use of WebOffice with its online folder system for sharing documents. For instance, the Name Change Team folder contains documents that only employees involved in effecting our name change (effective February 22, 2005 from Danvers Savings Bank to Danversbank) could access. In contrast, everyone in the Bank can read the documents in the Customer Survey Folder where I post feedback from customers.”

“I like the fact that we can grant various levels of permission for access to these folders and documents, and yet have them all reside on the same WebOffice. It makes it all very easy to administer,” French says.

“Before the Document Manager, employees emailed each other large documents, but WebOffice provides a central online place to share information. WebOffice has definitely increased productivity at the Bank, and it has certainly alleviated the burden on our email server,” said French. “It really serves its purpose.”

“The WebOffice Announcements feature is also heavily used by Danversbank. “We regularly have 25 announcements posted on our Home Page. I use the WebEx WebOffice Announcements feature in 3 ways: Full announcements; brief announcements with links to more information; and announcements with a link to a WebEx WebOffice database.” For instance, Danversbank recently posted an announcement that employees were eligible to get discounts on Verizon Wireless cell phones. The announcement contained a link to a database to sign up for an information session on the offer. “We post 4 to 5 announcements each day. Depending on the nature of the announcement, I might keep it out there for 2 or 3 weeks, until I’m sure everyone has had a chance to see it. Then I either delete it because it’s obsolete, or copy it into the Document Manager, so people can refer to it there on an ongoing basis.”

The WebOffice Database Manager helps Danversbank manage community relations, new business development and employee communications. The company has teams of people who are working on employee community involvement, tracking what competitors are doing in the community and managing new business opportunities. “The WebOffice Database Manager helps us facilitate and track all of this,” French explained. “Our databases are accessed by anywhere from 8 to 250 employees daily.”

Danversbank allows each full time employee 3 paid days off during the year to volunteer in the community. “It’s a wonderful benefit, but nevertheless, we realized that many staff members were not taking advantage of it. They didn’t really know where to begin to look for volunteer work that would fit with the 3-day parameter,” said French. “So, using the WebOffice Database Manager, I created a database that I update with opportunities I find in the local newspapers. Once I log those opportunities into the database, people at least have a starting point.”

Another Danversbank database allows employees to log volunteer work in the community. There are 150 different relationships between Danversbank employees and groups in the community. “I’m a volunteer at a dog shelter. Another employee volunteered at an all day event for Special Olympics. An employee can volunteer a day at a time, or one hour a week for a project that runs many weeks. The volunteer work can be just about anything the employee chooses,” French explains.

The WebEx WebOffice Database Manager creates a much more efficient way for Danversbank to track and record data about new business opportunities in the community. In the past, the company used a paper form that anyone who found a new business opportunity could fill out and turn in. A formal report would then be created for the President and Board of Directors. “We have twelve different branch offices,” says French. “One branch manager might report that a new pizza place has opened up in town; another might notice that the YMCA in his or her community is looking for a summer program sponsor. That’s the sort of information we are trying to capture - it provides a great way for us to look at the opportunities in total and decide where to direct our efforts,” said French.

“With WebOffice, I was able to say, ‘Wait a minute, if we have 20 individual paper forms, how are we going to quantify that data or measure any of it?’ If we use the WebOffice Database Manager, we can sort based on the field we want, we can quantify the results and print this information in convenient reports. So, it’s a great mechanism for capturing data and then reporting it.”

Danversbank also uses WebOffice to facilitate certain aspects of its employee communications. For example, the company is now using the Database Manager as a “For Sale” marketplace. “Employees can upload personal items at their own discretion,” says French. “Right now someone is listing a car for sale and someone else a scooter. People can even upload a photo if they want. The database gives them the freedom to add or change their own entries whenever they want.”

Another database allows employees to anonymously submit questions to the President. In February, the Bank dropped ‘Savings’ from the name and became ‘Danversbank.’ “In preparation for the change, we created a database on WebOffice where employees could submit questions to the President regarding the name change, what it would mean for the Bank, and any other concerns people had,” said French. “When he responded, we put his answers in the WebOffice Announcement section so people could see them right away.”

The awards database allows employees to confidentially nominate fellow employees for exceptional service awards. Each month the Bank gives out an exceptional service award to an employee nominated by a coworker. “This is an example of a database that can be added to by everyone, but only viewed by certain senior management staff. I love that I can make a database that only one person can see or that the whole Bank can see. That works out great,” French said.

Danversbank created a special Event Registration database that allows employees to schedule Compliance Training or Security Training at a time that works best for them. “It’s a much easier route to take than asking the employees to email the HR Department to register, and then worrying about keeping track of who is scheduled when. The system captures that data and we can look quickly to see exactly how many people signed up in the database,” said French.

The database allows Danversbank to rename and reorder fields easily, select from multiple views and print easy-to-read reports in varying formats. The bank can now point employees directly to the database through an automatic link and track attendance daily. Best of all, employees don’t have to be at work to sign up for a session because WebOffice (and the registration database) are accessible straight from the web - anytime, anywhere.

Danvers bank also uses the WebOffice Opinion Polls. “We were trying to gauge how many employees needed training on our online Banking system, so we used a WebOffice Opinion Poll to get a snapshot of that. When I set up the poll, I asked it to identify the people who responded, so we knew exactly who wanted training.”

“The ability that WebOffice gives us to conduct polls is just wonderful. Our only other alternative would be to send out a question by email. One of the primary reasons we put WebOffice in place was to try to ease the burden on our email server. And, it’s great the way the WebOffice Opinion Polls tally everything.”

“Another WebOffice function we really enjoy is the ability to place web links on the top menu bar and to add other links on the Home Page. It allows us to create a portal for employees to go online anywhere they need to go, relating to the Bank and its services. For instance, on the Home Page, we provide a link to our retirement fund, to our insurance provider, and to our public website.”

“WebOffice provides all the functionality we need and then some. I feel like we are just beginning to scratch the surface of the WebOffice and its capabilities,” French concluded.