About Wilson Blanchard

Wilson Blanchard is a full-service condominium management company with offices across the GTA, Golden Horseshoe, Niagara and Waterloo regions. They are one of the largest and most respected condo management firms in Canada and have provided services to condominium boards since 1995.

The challenge: office space filled with paper files

Wilson Blanchard found itself drowning in paper, with valuable corporate office space dedicated to the storage of paper files. As a full-service condominium management company with many clients, each condo unit has its own unique file of documents. If there is a sale or purchase of a unit, or any other significant changes to the. unit, additional documents are created and filed.

The solution: from in-house scanning to a trusted outsourced partner

First attempt: scanning in-house

Initially, Wilson Blanchard purchased software to manage their digital documents with a plan to transition to a paperless office. They purchased high volume scanners and hired students to upload the condo files from their largest office in Hamilton, Ontario. Progress was slow with many challenges. Within a year they decided they needed a trusted outsourced scanning partner.

Outsourcing to Bay Area Records

Wilson Blanchard approached Bay Area Records, a Hamilton based digitization and records management expert to complete the work. Bay Area Records managed the project, in close collaboration with the Wilson Blanchard team and created a customized solution to mirror what the team had already completed in-house. Through daily updates, batches were prepared and uploaded to a secure FTP (File Transfer Protocol) site and Wilson Blanchard was able to easily download the digital files into their file sharing application. In the event of an urgent request for materials not yet scanned, Bay Area Records was able to retrieve files to provide a seamless workflow.

The results: off-site storage closed and office space freed up

Wilson Blanchard had 500 boxes of historical files at an offsite storage facility with expensive monthly rental charges. Their document digitization project has enabled them to permanently close that storage facility with the peace of mind of knowing those files are preserved digitally in a file sharing application and will not degrade over time like stored paper records do. Bay Area Records also provides secure and confidential record shredding services for Wilson Blanchard including a best practice of providing a digital "Certificate of Destruction".

The project was such a success that Wilson Blanchard expanded the scope of the project with Bay Area Records to include their Cambridge and Toronto offices, and recently added their St. Catharines office. Valuable office real estate has been freed up.

What's next: ongoing scanning of new files

Wilson Blanchard sends newly created files and paper documents to Bay Area Records for scanning and uploading ensuring that Wilson Blanchard team has a comprehensive digital document management system.