DEININGER CONSULTING is a top player in the executive search industry. Founded in 1981 by Thomas Deininger, this firm, headquartered in Frankfurt am Main, also boasts locations in Shanghai, Delhi, Warsaw, Singapore, among others. Specializing in high-caliber executive searches, DEININGER CONSULTING advises its customers on filling positions within the upper echelons of management as well as on selecting candidates for board and supervisory committee roles.

At DEININGER CONSULTING, while the phone remains an indispensable tool for instant communication, email stands as an equally crucial linchpin for connecting with customers, candidates, and partners. The ability to swiftly retrieve old email is essential for maintaining the flow of productivity. However, achieving this efficiency hasn't always been easy. The firm's policy of limiting mailboxes to just two gigabytes previously transformed searching for old email messages into a tedious task. Moreover, the search functionality of the email client often lagged, which not only devoured valuable time but also sparked frustration among the team and IT staff alike. Managing the IT for DEININGER's broad network, centrally coordinated from Frankfurt, often meant wrestling with the time-consuming process of fetching specific email messages, sometimes burning up to an hour per request.

Protecting Sensitive Personal Information of Candidates and Customers

In the quest for the right solution, DEININGER CONSULTING naturally had very high standards—for good reason. As an executive search firm, the company handles sensitive, personal information of candidates on a daily basis. We're talking not just about executives, but in some cases, highly recognizable figures in their respective industries. This reality necessitates a particularly secure and conscientious approach to email communication. This is especially true in light of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which took full effect in May 2018 and places personal data squarely in the spotlight. Thorsten Schultze, Head of IT Operations at DEININGER CONSULTING, sums up the situation:

"Our main requirement was that our team could swiftly, easily, and dependably find and access the email messages they needed," Schultze says. "We were seeking a user-friendly tool that would also meet our compliance standards. Based on my experience, it's usually apparent from the first login whether a solution will appeal to both the users and us in the IT department. Ideally, it's the intuitive and self-explanatory usability that immediately ignites the spark."

And it was indeed this "spark" that ignited during the EMA test run, leading DEININGER CONSULTING to now save around 50% of the time previously spent on searching for email messages. With the integration of ARTEC IT Solutions' system, the company's staff has access to a streamlined search interface. Whether the messages are on the mail server or archived, they can be combed through within seconds using full-text search by entering various keywords. The setup is purposefully simple, focusing on the key features, which allowed employees to adapt instantly. Currently, about 100 employees in Germany use EMA to independently conduct their searches. The superior performance of ARTEC's solution quickly outpaced the basic functions of the email client in use. Research and retrieval of older messages is now done exclusively using ARTEC's system.

Compliance and GDPR Take Center Stage

The decision to adopt the modular EMA email archiving solution was driven not just by the significant time savings, but also by security concerns. "Compliance has always been a critical issue at DEININGER CONSULTING, as protecting our customers' and candidates' data is of utmost importance," Schultze notes.

"Data security and protection are our top priorities. We've fortified our systems with multiple security engines and always strive for the highest security standards. This was the case even before the GDPR came into effect, but the regulation has certainly given us an additional push. EMA perfectly fits into our concept and seamlessly integrates into our security infrastructure. Plus, with features like the four-eyes principle, we can meet industry-specific legal requirements with confidence."

Meeting Special Requirements

Among the unique challenges faced is the handling of email accounts belonging to employees who have left the company. Through EMA, DEININGER CONSULTING has implemented protected archive access with a 4-Eye-Princple for these messages, which are eventually deleted from the mail server after a certain period. Access to these messages in the EMA archive is only possible with explicit approval from the data protection officer, ensuring that legal requirements are met both optimally and elegantly. DEININGER CONSULTING has also neatly and intelligently addressed the tricky issue of personal email use, a common source of conflict in email archiving. With EMA, they’ve found a solution that manages to respect privacy while adhering to compliance standards.

To ensure a strict separation between business and personal email communication, DEININGER CONSULTING set up dedicated private email accounts. This move not only upheld privacy standards but also mitigated the security risks associated with using popular free email services. Furthermore, DEININGER CONSULTING leverages ARTEC's email management for support during both external and internal audits. The system can provide essential information that might be unavailable from other sources. Recently, the executive search firm upgraded to an EMA S400 appliance, deliberately opting for an on-premises solution, while the rest of its IT infrastructure is nearly fully virtualized in a hyper-converged setup.

The recent upgrade of the appliance and its integration into our virtualized infrastructure went off without a hitch. One of the aspects I really value about ARTEC IT Solutions, aside from their standards-based approach, is the fact that it's a local German company. This gives us short communication paths to our contacts, which has been a massive help, especially in support matters. Both our IT team and the end-users are very pleased with EMA.

Thanks to its modular structure, EMA can serve as an archive for corporate data far beyond just email archiving, with potential expansions to include additional areas anytime. For instance, DEININGER CONSULTING is currently exploring the possibility of archiving file and scan data, as well as information from its in-house ERP system in the future.