Rohm and Haas specialty materials are incorporated into a wide range of products for the building and construction, electronics, food and retail, household and personal care, industrial process, packaging, paper, transportation and water industries. With diversified offerings across a range of markets, the company is faced with numerous legal and regulatory compliance mandates spanning each of these different industries. As a result, the company has an immediate and growing need to address daily management and retention of thousands of e-mail records, as well as the need to address the management of all electronic records across the corporation. 

 “We are taking a practical approach to electronic records management and this proactive solution has met our stringent requirement not to overwhelm end users as we seek to manage our corporate obligations for email record keeping,” said Sandy Hostetter, program manager for electronic content management and retention at Rohm and Haas Company.  “The unique zone approach offered by Integro and IBM provides records-enabled e-mail right at the mailbox level. This allows us to manage e-mails according to their business value in a way that is not disruptive to our users. The solution also provides us the flexibility to apply federated records management in the future as we roll it out to all of our electronic systems. This will enable us to centrally manage records in multiple electronic repositories for legal and compliance purposes. After an extensive search, this set of products provided the most comprehensive controls while preserving our fundamental priority for simplicity of use by our end users.”

Approximately 15,000 Rohm and Haas employees send or receive hundreds of thousands of emails a day and the company required a solution that could streamline email record-keeping while maintaining corporate mailbox control and minimizing record-keeping tasks of end users. Most important to Rohm and Haas was the need to separate email messages and attachments that had legal, regulatory or business value from convenience and transitory emails.

Instead of retaining and storing every email that comes and goes through the mail system, employees will use the Integro eRecords Bridge technology to handle each email with the appropriate level of control based on its business value. Emails that the company needs to keep to support its business and compliance needs can be distinguished from those that are nonessential. Routine disposal of nonessential emails in the normal course of business not only makes it faster and easier to find important messages, it allows the integration of protective measures to ensure the integrity of the records retained by the company.

In the solution, Integro's eRecords Bridge software is integrated with IBM DB2 Records Manager to control the records retained by the company and IBM DB2 CommonStore to securely and efficiently move the e-mail messages to be retained from the email system into IBM Content Manager. The solution stores high-value emails, declares, classifies and locks them as records, providing essential capabilities to apply legal holds when required, and for disposal at the end of their lifecycle. The solution also eliminates the storage of hundreds of thousands of non-essential e-mails, helping to improve e-mail system performance, reduce backup and restore times and lower storage costs.

“This type of e-mail records management is invaluable to companies like Rohm and Haas because it manages record retention based on the business value of each e-mail,” said Doug Magnuson, Integro vice president of products and offerings. “Since many e-mails are considered convenience copies that should be disposed of once there is no longer a business need, using our zone management approach helps companies effectively manage their email system by the record keeping value of each email, rather than based on mailbox size and IT policies alone.”

About Integro

A Premier IBM Business Partner, Integro helps companies design and deploy enterprise content management solutions for email, records, and document management.  Integro’s “policy to technology” services include business consulting, systems integration, and training.  Integro’s clients are mid-size and Fortune 500 firms across the U.S. and Canada, and span a range of industries including, healthcare, manufacturing, government, finance, and insurance.  Integro is a privately-held company founded in 1995.  For more information, visit www.integro.com.

About IBM

For more information about IBM content management and records management visit http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/cm/.

About Rohm and Haas Company

Leading the way since 1909, Rohm and Haas is a global pioneer in the creation and development of innovative technologies and solutions for the specialty materials industry.  The company’s technologies are found in a wide range of markets including: Building and Construction, Electronics, Food and Retail, Household and Personal Care, Industrial Process, Packaging, Paper, Transportation and Water. Our innovative technologies and solutions help to improve life everyday, around the world. Based in Philadelphia, PA, the company generated annual sales of approximately $8 billion in 2005. Visit www.rohmhaas.com for more information. imagine the possibilities™

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IBM, IBM DB2 CommonStore and IBM DB2 Records Manager and the IBM e-business logo are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. For a list of additional IBM trademarks, please see www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml

CONTACT:

Holli Haswell

IBM

512-286-3265

hhaswell@us.ibm.com

Doug Magnuson
Integro
480-766-8252
dmagnuson@integro.com

Article posted on IBM.com: http://www-306.ibm.com/software/swnews/swnews.nsf/n/hhal6pxqzh?OpenDocument&Site=software