REHAU – Bringing critical information together with harmon.ie

The REHAU Group is a leading systems and service provider for polymer-based solutions for use in construction, automotive and industry. The Legal Department is responsible for the corporate legal matters of the entire worldwide REHAU Group, which accounts for about 20,000 employees.

The volume of information that must be successfully dealt with by the Legal Department is large and vital to business functionality across the company. So, the right solution was critical not only to the Legal Department but for company-wide success.

As the legal branch of a multinational corporation, the team at REHAU handles large quantities of sensitive documentation and email correspondence. Before they updated their file storage infrastructure to SharePoint with harmon.ie, they identified two distinct areas that were a source of inefficiency and risk for their business:

• Storing e-mails and documents in separate places meant that people spent a lot of time searching disparate platforms for information or resources.
• Different versions of documents being circulated and stored through different mediums and in different places created a security risk and opened the possibility of ʻdocument chaos.ʼ

The Legal Department at REHAU wanted a widely accessible, central system of record which would maintain a single version of each document, standardized across their international offices.

But with sensitive legal information often shared via email, it became difficult to keep track of which document version was the most up to date. REHAU realized that it needed to combine SharePoint and Outlook to unify information sharing.

harmon.ie helps manage cases and legal matters worldwide

The benefits of SharePoint as the repository of choice was realized by adding harmon.ieʼs solution to the information sharing process, making it easier for its users. harmon.ie uses a simple ʻdrag and dropʼ feature to help users file e-mails and attachments in SharePoint with the correct metadata, bringing Outlook and SharePoint together. This enabled the REHAU Group Legal Department to create the truly universal file sharing infrastructure that its global requirements demanded.

harmon.ie provided REHAU with a solution that covered 95-100% of its needs, from day one. And at a much more cost-efficient price than a specialized third-party solution.

With harmon.ie, REHAU can easily store and manage emails and documents. This is a big benefit when it comes to managing cases. Using SharePoint document map technology and harmon.ie metadata, it can organize information like deadlines, resubmissions, negotiations, and other case-related information in a consistent and speedy manner, which is essential in the legal world. And department employees can easily drag and drop documents of record into the right folder in SharePoint for safekeeping.

harmon.ie creates a more secure, more efficient workplace

harmon.ie enabled REHAU to bridge the gap between their email and SharePoint, meaning it could more easily store, organize, and share everything the department needs to work on at any given time, from one central place. The REHAU Group is a more effective and secure business thanks to the efficiencies that SharePoint and harmon.ie have provided.

harmon.ie enabled REHAU to treat e-mails like other legal documents

Storing information inefficiently meant important documents and data relevant to the REHAU legal team was often siloed away in individual inboxes or stored incorrectly in SharePoint, making it almost impossible to find. This was slowing down processes, affecting important decisions, disrupting important management processes, and putting data at risk.

With harmon.ie, the Legal Department can now capture important information accurately and classify case files quickly with the correct metadata. This means that case information is more easily found by the relevant parties when itʼs needed.

Enabling better third-party collaboration

Often, REHAU Groupʼs Legal Department works with several third-party lawyers or paralegals on the same case. Before harmon.ie, they struggled to organize all the different versions of files, documents, and emails that each party was working with. Long email threads with different versions can now be replaced with secure links to the latest version of each important document. This can then be more easily shared with third-parties, securely – saving everybody a lot of time and headaches.