Success story
BMO Harris Bank
SUCCESS STORY
Industry• Financial

BMO Harris Bank

Solutions
Industry• OpenText™ InfoArchive• Financial

Partner support
Solution• Flatirons Digital Innovations• OpenText™ InfoArchive

Partner support• Flatirons Digital Innovations

Results
Archived 4.3 terabytes of data,
Results enabling a holistic view of legacy
and current data

Archived 4.3 terabytes of data,
enablinga holisticof legacy
Saved $5million view
per yearand current data
Achieved 3-month project
Saved$5 million
per year
executionand 12-monthproject payback

Achieved 3-month project
executionand 12-monthproject
Demonstrated
strict regulation
paybackcompliance with audit trails,
enforced retention policies
Demonstrated strict regulation
compliance with audit trails,
enforced retention policies

BMO
HarrisBank
Bankstreamlines
streamlines
BMO Harrissystemlandscapewith
withOpenText
system landscape
OpenText

Large commercial bank saves more than $10 million through data
Large commercial bank saves more than $10 million through dataarchiving and application decommissioning with OpenText InfoArchivearchiving and application decommissioning with OpenText InfoArchive“We wanted to make sure it really was a“Wewanted to makesure it really
was a partnership.
partnership.
[OpenText]
understoodexactly [OpenText]
understoodexactly what
was and we understood
what our mission
wasourandmission
we understood
what
they
brought
to thetable.
It’s veryrare ina project of
what
they
brought
to thetable.
It’s veryrare
thisand scopethatyouandcanscope
hit all of
theyourequirements,
in sizea projectof thissize
thatgetthemandcome in on timeon budget.
I would
canhit all
alldoneof therequirements,
getandthemallabsolutely
recommendtheOpenText
InfoArchive
application
done and come in on time and on budget. I
decommissioningsolution.”
would absolutely
recommend the OpenText
Todd Sesto
InfoArchive
application
SeniorTechnology OfficerBMO
Harris Bank
decommissioning
solution.”
Todd Sesto

Senior Technology Officer
BMO Harris BankBMO Harris Bank streamlines system landscape with OpenText

BMO Harris Bank N.A. is a large commercial bank with more than
$195 billion USD in assets. Headquartered in Chicago, it has morethan 600 branches across nine states and is a subsidiary of theprestigious Bank of Montreal.
After acquiring M&I Bank in 2010, BMO Harris began a series ofbusiness and technology merger activities that identified numerous
outdated or redundant legacy applications. Many were running in
read-only mode purely for access to data. To address rising costs
related to the growing number of legacy systems, BMO Harrisdeveloped a data retention and decommissioning (DRD) program.
“BMO Harris is in a highly regulated industry with data retention
requirements that range from 7 to 40 years,” said Todd Sesto,Senior Technology Officer at BMO Harris Bank. “We have a historyof mergers and acquisition and, with each merger, we get more
and more data that has to be consolidated in order to address theexpanding number of legacy applications.”
As part of its overall DRD program, BMO Harris embarked on acomprehensive “exit strategy” for data residing in applications at theend of their lifecycle. More than 100 applications were included in theprogram that began in 2012.
At the time of the decommissioning, the bank was using anapplication that consisted of three modules and corresponding
databases: General Ledger, Accounts Receivable and Fixed Assets.
The goal was to efficiently extract legacy data and archive it to acentral repository. From there, it could retain and access data ina fully compliant manner, with a complete audit trail and chain ofcustody tracking. If this could be accomplished, the underlying legacy
applications—which were costing more than $285,000 per month tokeep running—could be decommissioned.

The project had four primary objectives. The first was todramatically reduce cost by decreasing legacy software
maintenance fees, energy costs for running related legacy
hardware platforms and personnel costs to employ individuals withthe unique skills to maintain them. Second, to allow easy retrievalof information using familiar web-based tools. Next, to rigorously
support compliance requirements for data, including security,
privacy, retention and disposal rules. Finally, to reproduce near
exact replicas of original reports to minimize user adoption issues.
In addition, BMO Harris required that data be stored in a standardsbased format that would be compatible with future technology.
BMO Harris Bank selected OpenText™ InfoArchive for its levelof built-in functionality and ability to meet requirements at areasonable cost. The bank also appreciated the approach that
OpenText and partner, Flatirons Digital Innovations, brought tothe project. While there were many existing repository solutions
inside the bank, only InfoArchive offered comprehensive compliancefeatures while assuring vendor stability and future technology
compatibility. “We wanted to make sure it really was a partnership.
They understood exactly what our mission was and we understood
what they brought to the table,” Sesto said.
OpenText and Flatirons leveraged the power and ease of use of
InfoArchive and added several pieces of functionality tailored to BMO
Harris’s specific application decommissioning needs. This included
easy storage of structured and unstructured data in a vendor-neutral,
future-proof format, a full audit trail with unbroken chain of custodyfrom data extraction to usage, the ability to query and transform data
into reports similar to original systems and fine-grained data retention
policies with incremental updates and deletes.

“BMO Harris Bank wasable to save $5 million
per year with ongoing
reductions in the same
ballpark due to reducedlicensing, infrastructure
and ongoing support cost.”
Todd SestoSenior Technology Officer
BMO Harris BankBMO Harris Bank streamlines system landscape with OpenText“The key features we’ve used are the easy ability to get data into
the application and custom screens for user access to information,”
Sesto noted. During the UI design process, InfoArchive’s advanced
layout capabilities were used to consolidate data and reports tomake the archived data more usable than in the legacy systems. This
included scrolling tables, collapsible sections and elimination of viewsof data that are not important to archive users.
Over the course of three months, the solution exceeded the goalsof the initial DRD project. “BMO Harris Bank was able to save $5
million per year with ongoing reductions in the same ballpark due
to reduced licensing, infrastructure and ongoing support cost,”
Sesto said. “It’s had a great payback for us [and allowed us to] meet
regulatory requirements.”

Within seven years, BMO Harris decommissioned 16 applications andarchived 4.3 terabytes of data. Moreover, the bank demonstrated acompelling ROI over a seven-year period and paid back the cost of
the project in 12 months, while improving ease of data access without
sacrificing any of its strict data compliance requirements.

About Flatirons Digital Innovations
Flatirons Digital Innovations, Inc., FDI, builds a more educated andinformed society by enabling transparent and accessible
digital information.
fdiinc.com

About OpenText
OpenText, The Information Company,
enables organizations to gain insight
through market leading information
management solutions, on-premises orin the cloud. For more information aboutOpenText (NASDAQ: OTEX, TSX: OTEX)
visit opentext.com.
Customer storiesopentext.com/contact
Twitter | LinkedIn
Copyright © 2021 Open Text. All Rights Reserved. Trademarks owned by Open Text.
For more information, visit: https://www.opentext.com/about/copyright-information(11.06.21)18447.EN