Featuring contributions from Tjeerd Hendel-Blackford and Shannon Summers Enhesa; Kristen Duda and Jessica Sarnowski, Intelex
Why do Intelex and Enhesa partner with each other?
Enhesa and Intelex started working together back in 2013 as there were clear mutual benefits of partnering. On the one hand, Intelex is a market leading EHSQ software platform and enables clients to manage their EHS program in one central platform, including compliance with EHS laws. On the other hand, Enhesa is the global market leader in providing analysis of global EHS laws and regulations, packaged as “regulatory content.” This means there is no overlap in what both companies provide, but a lot of mutual benefits in working together to serve our mutual clients’ end goals – which is ultimately to look after the safety of their employees and the natural environment in which they operate.
Another way to look at it is by taking the analogy of a CD or Cassette player (remember those?). In this example, Intelex would be an awesome stereo system – but (the compliance module specifically) is much more useful when you have a CD or cassette to play in it…Enhesa essentially provides this (a chart-topping album no-less!) – together the music makes the Intelex platform sing.
How does the partnership work?
The partnership works on a number of levels: strategic, commercial and technical.
In terms of strategy, both companies work with the same end-user clients – EHS Directors and Managers around the world who are seeking to improve their performance and deliver real ROI with their EHS programs. Working together to deliver and promote a market-leading joint-solution clearly provides benefits to each company and, most importantly, our customers. The expertise and experience at both companies also mean that we can collaborate in providing real value through thought leadership and best-practice advice to clients. When deciding to enter into a partnership, it was important to both organizations that they share a similar mission and value system (and in this case, they did) – working to make the world a better place.
Obviously, on the commercial side of things, both companies are growing rapidly so there is mutual interest in expanding our client base – working together opens doors for both organizations.
Last, but definitely not least, is the technical side of things. Our partnership can only work if the Intelex software works seamlessly with Enhesa content dovetailed into it. Years of experience and daily interaction between our technical teams make this a reality. These days, the market is trending toward companies using only one system to manage all of their environmental, health, safety, and quality needs, and this integration ensures that administrators have a solid “one-stop-shop” versus needing to log data in disparate platforms.
In practical terms, how does the integration between Enhesa and Intelex work?
In basic terms, the client signs up to use Intelex as their enterprise-wide EHS software platform, and then they separately contract with Enhesa as their EHS regulatory intelligence (or content) provider. Sometimes the chicken comes first, sometimes the egg! Then, Enhesa provides an automated (and regularly updated) datafeed of the contracted EHS regulatory intelligence services straight into Intelex’s Compliance Application. Hey presto! Clients can then build reports and assign tasks and follow up actions directly from the data within their Intelex system, knowing their Enhesa data is always up to date.
Of course, there is a little more to it than that. In terms of managing the integration, all the relevant stakeholders then come together to make the integration a smooth reality. This will involve the Intelex and Enhesa teams (account managers and technical team), and will also involve the client IT and EHS teams, and very often also a software implementation consultant. The teams work together to configure, implement, train, and inform all relevant users and stakeholders. Both Enhesa and Intelex also partner with global service companies like Arcadis and ERM, who are often contracted by the customer to provide integration and deployment support to ensure that best practices are being followed and the system is up and running in no time.
How does the joint offering help clients operating across global locations?
The benefits can be summarized as follows:
- Save Time – EHS professionals are not lawyers and are busy people. By having standardized, reliable (yet locally specific) sourced EHS regulatory content, they will not have to waste time scouring legal journals or analyzing changes in laws themselves. Another clear benefit of using a centralized resource of software/regulatory content to manage EHS compliance, from site level up to corporate, is that everyone in the company is using one system. A multi-lingual system, structured in a standardized way will improve communication within your organization – everyone will speak the same “EHS compliance” language. As mentioned before, using one platform versus several different systems to manage global EHS programs requires much less admin time and resources.
- Save Money – it is common that companies without a centralized software/regulatory content resource will have multiple local, regional, and corporate resources to support them in their compliance program. Sites may have locally maintained legal registers. Corporate will rely on separate audit tools, often alongside third-party auditors, to verify compliance. Essentially, this can result in companies paying out (at least twice) at both site and corporate level, for the same content. In addition, adopting a risk-based, ongoing compliance management approach will result in fewer, more targeted, and effective site audits.
What are the Types of Companies Who Would Benefit from Purchasing an Intelex/Enhesa Joint Solution?
Any company that takes EHS compliance seriously across all of its locations would benefit!
However, the joint offering is particularly suited to multinational corporations who operate across multiple countries and regions around the world. The globally standardized approach to EHS regulatory information that Enhesa’s Compliance Intelligence allows, means that companies can use the same solution in any country they operate in, for all of their sites – thereby removing the need for a multitude of different local/regional solutions, and allowing the analysis and management of EHS compliance risks (through data and metrics) from site level up to corporate, and vice versa. This results in numerous efficiencies. In terms of the types of industry that the joint solution can benefit, it can be useful to all industry sectors. Particular strengths lie in the Pharmaceutical, Automotive, Electronics, Chemicals and Aerospace industries.
In complementary fashion, Intelex’s software allows companies to create an overall management system on a global scale to ensure compliance and continuous improvement. Intelex software establishes accountability for what your company is doing to achieve compliance and provides visibility into tasks related to regulatory requirements at facilities around the globe. When paired together with Enhesa content, the result is a powerful tool that companies with a multitude of locations and regulatory requirements can utilize to manage complex requirements with confidence.
How do you see the partnership evolving over the coming years?
As Enhesa and Intelex continue to grow in their respective spaces, we expect the partnership to continue to expand its reach both commercially and technically. Enhesa rolled out a new partner program this year to better support its strategic partners, and Intelex has also changed the composition of its internal teams to better support the technical and commercial relationships with partners. As Intelex pushes further in the European market, both alliance teams will continue to work together to deepen the technical integration capabilities as new features are released, as well as produce exciting new content and intelligence to better serve our customers.
Interested in learning more? Join the Managing EHS Regulatory Compliance on a Global Scale: From Theory to Practice with Enhesa and Intelex.
Contact:
Jessica Sarnowski, Global Compliance Content Lead, Intelex (Jessica.Sarnowski@intelex.com)
Tjeerd Hendel-Blackford, Head of Thought Leadership, Enhesa (thb@enhesa.com)
