Real estate management as an economic factor

For a chain store retailer like Hamm Reno, real estate management is a key economic factor. After all, the location, equipment and operation of the properties leased for several years are key factors in determining the company's earnings and profit situation and thus its long-term economic success.

Hamm Reno Group is one of the largest shoe retailers in Europe and has been in this business for over 120 years. 6,000 employees across Europe sell over 40 million products annually. Reno operates approximately 550 stores throughout Europe. These properties alone have a total of around 80,000 document pages.

At Reno, the real estate department is directly connected to the management. Employees have to work with the real estate files on a daily basis - because they contain business-critical documents such as settlements, broker agreements or damage reports.

These documents must be managed in an audit-proof manner and be available to departments regardless of location. Reno uses the OpenText Document Access for SAP Solutions solution for this purpose.

Found in seconds

Due to the merger of the Hamm and Reno groups in 2005, the Hamm Reno Group has two headquarters: in Osnabrück and in Thaleischweiler-Fröschen in Rhineland-Palatinate.

In the past, if an employee needed to access a specific document that was located at another site, they would request it with the file and have it emailed or even mailed to them.

This cost both the employee and his colleagues at the other location unnecessary time.

"Since we were already using OpenText Email Archiving for Microsoft Exchange and had a very positive experience with it, we wanted to work with OpenText again - not least to ensure the harmonious interaction of our IT solutions including SAP Real Estate."

explains Manfred Gries, Group Head of Application Administration at Hamm Reno.

Digital file management in real estate management

With the support of OpenText partner Axxedo, Reno's long-time IT supplier, the project started in August 2013 and finally went live in January 2014.

Employees can now access and view any digital document at the touch of a button, regardless of location.

"This saves time and increases productivity".

Manfred Gries is pleased.

"Our goal was to provide the responsible employees with fast, easy and decentralized access to the real estate files. We succeeded in this one hundred percent with OpenText Document Access for SAP Solutions."

In the past, all real estate documents were kept in archive rooms - up to three file folders for each property. If an employee needed a specific document, he had to get the corresponding folder and search through it manually.

"The records were organized by branch. If colleagues wanted to find something independent of a branch - for example, all reports of water damage in a particular year - that used to take a massive amount of time."

Manfred Gries remembers.

Thanks to OpenText's full-text search, employees can now display all relevant documents for a keyword within a few moments.

But it was not only the long searches that made efficient and effective real estate management difficult. Rather, the paper files also lacked valuable information from the offer and initiation phase, which in some cases precede the leasing of a property by years.

Thanks to the OpenText solution, this information is now also contained in the files and accessible via special views. For example, users from different departments such as legal, store construction, marketing or the management now access all information on the real estate agents or the profitability check of the favored properties at the push of a button - all information that is worth hard cash.

Business operations and legal certainty

Paper-based files carry the risk of being lost or destroyed by fire or water. Since all documents in the Reno archive were only available in simple form, the new OpenText solution was intended to protect the files from corresponding loss thanks to digitization and multiple backup.

"Even in the event of a disaster, we are fully operational again in a maximum of one week"

explains Gries. In addition, the OpenText solution also ensures audit compliance.

This is because all e-mail communication can now be reliably filed with the corresponding document in the respective file at the touch of a button. The completeness of the files is thus guaranteed at all times.

This creates transparency for employees and legal certainty for the company. Based on the positive experience with the digital real estate files, a similar system for general contract documents is currently being rolled out, using the same architecture as a basis.

"Perhaps more document types will be added in the future"

Gries reflects.

"The convenience of location-independent access or practical full-text search would also be desirable for the HR department, for example."

Branch: Retail
Customer: Hamm Reno Group
Partner: Axxedo

Challenges:

• Paper files are expensive, make searching difficult, and carry a high risk of loss.
• Real estate files on paper do not contain the entire property history.
• Paper files get in the way of true real estate management.

Solution:

• OpenText Document Access for SAP Solutions
• OpenText Email Archiving for Microsoft Exchange

Business benefits:

• Full text search and location-independent access save time and increase productivity.
• Digital real estate files enable real estate management instead of administration.
• Digital files protect against loss
  and ensure business operations
  as well as legal certainty.

Simplify Your Digital Transformation

To support companies on their way to the digital economy, OpenText has designed the "Simplify Your Digital Transformation" workshop.

In a two-day workshop, the information management specialist will share his experience with successful digital transformation projects from various industries.

How can these experiences be applied to your own industry and your own company? OpenText has developed a digital maturity model for this purpose and applies it in the workshop to the participating company, its products, customer interactions and operational processes.

Progress already made is also taken into account. On this basis, innovative solutions for a future digital business model are developed and prioritized from a time and strategic perspective.

In the next step, the workshop participants identify the necessary requirements for information management. This creates a roadmap that includes all important levels: from simplifying the digital IT platform to accelerating business processes and transforming the business model.