Trend Micro needed a modern, efficient approach to a very old problem—comparing documents. The DocsCorp demonstration became a light bulb moment— a revelation, even—for the HR team when they realized they could apply more rigorous processes to their document review and distribution workflows to protect clients.
About Trend Micro
Trend Micro, a global leader in IT security, develops innovative solutions that make the world safe for businesses and consumers to exchange digital information. With over 25 years of security expertise, they are recognized as the market leaders in server, cloud and small business content security. Trend Micro enables the smart protection of information with security solutions that are simple to deploy and manage while accommodating an ever-changing ecosystem.
The business challenge
The Trend Micro HR team became aware of DocsCorp and its software solutions through Ascertus, a leading UK specialist in document production and management solutions. The HR team consists of 17 staff members based in Ireland, France, Italy and the UK supporting its worldwide operation in 23 countries.
“It was during some of the early meetings,” recalls Aideen Shannon, EMEA HR Program Manager Trend Micro “that we were introduced to the DocsCorp suite of document productivity tools, which included cleanDocs, compareDocs and pdfDocs. It was a light bulb moment for us. As a security company we felt we needed to apply more rigorous security measures and processes to our document production and distribution workflows. In that sense, cleanDocs and compareDocs were a revelation.”
The team was particularly concerned with the process of comparing employment contracts— the amount of time it was taking, but also because it was a manual process. For example, the HR team work and collaborate internally with legal and externally with other law firms and recruitment agencies (84 in total). Contracts move back and forth daily and need to be checked for amendments. “The alternative to an application like compareDocs”, says Aideen, “is to visually check the two documents on two monitors, or print them off and compare them side by side. Neither option is ideal, both are tedious and prone to error. Making a mistake or failing to capture the slightest change in an employment contract could have huge implications. compareDocs would be invaluable for version control.”
Our Solution
compareDocs is a very modern approach to a very old problem—comparing the differences between two versions of the same document. Its leading-edge technology can compare the difference between two documents with incredible accuracy and reliability across all document types to help authors collaborate on business-critical documents. It integrates with business applications and systems to give unparalleled levels of efficiency in the document review process.
“When we saw how easy it was to compare documents with compareDocs, we had to have it,” says Aideen. “It would save so much time, but more importantly it would catch all the document changes.” The HR team submitted their request to the Business Applications (BA) unit, briefing them on its requirements. As part of the due diligence process, they reviewed a number of document comparison applications, including compareDocs.
In the end, they went with compareDocs because of its ease of use and its ability to compare any format. The HR team can now compare Word to Word, PDF to PDF, Word to PDF, and scanned images to Word or PDF. The document comparison report, which shows all the changes between the original and modified documents, can be output as a traditional redline or as a track changes document. As a track changes Word document, users can accept/reject the changes directly in the comparison report document.
“We were equally excited and impressed with the cleanDocs product,” recalls Aideen “which automatically removes metadata from documents when emailed. Again, it just made sense that a security company would have and use this capability to protect themselves and their clients.”
cleanDocs is a breakthrough technology for desktop and mobile users that delivers speed, flexibility and control to protect against accidental information and metadata leaks. It removes more than 100 metadata types from documents at sub-second speeds, eliminating bottlenecks and delays. It achieves these blistering speeds thanks to a new technology pioneered by DocsCorp - binary-level processing. It also takes full advantage of multi-thread processing.
The Trend Micro team was particularly impressed with the policies feature. IT Administrators can manage metadata through the enforcement of corporate policies that can be applied to every email leaving the organization. Alternatively, users or nominated users can be given the ability to modify cleaning policies at the point of sending based on the recipient’s trust level. This allows users to manage metadata such as comments or track changes in context.
For Aideen and the team this wasn’t a consideration. “In a fast paced environment, we don’t have time to consider whether it should be cleaned or not and under what circumstances. Automating the process and cleaning everything that leaves the building allows the team to focus on what they do best—HR.”
Other Benefits
“We have been very impressed with Ascertus as a technology partner. They provided excellent customer service and paid particular attention to the smallest of details. Ascertus supported us at every step on our journey with DocsCorp.”
In Summary
Trend Micro is a global leader in IT security solutions. Its HR team exchange confidential information and contracts with external lawyers and recruitment agencies on a daily basis. They needed a technology solution that would eliminate the painstaking task of visually checking documents for changes, and would automatically remove metadata, particularly track changes and comments, from the document when it was emailed from the business. Both cleanDocs and compareDocs delivered on the brief.