Intelligent CIO Europe Issue 06 | Page 69

CASE STUDY O pting to outsource and run its IT infrastructure using Six Degrees’ Next Generation Network (NGN) has enabled UK-based law firm Fisher Jones Greenwood to achieve optimum efficiency and connectivity between all its branch locations and with the cloud. This high level of reliability has supported the company in growing the business and being recognised for its forward-thinking approach to the business of law. Background Fisher Jones Greenwood LLP is an award- winning and innovative law firm based in Central London and throughout Essex. With 30 years’ experience and over 160 lawyers, paralegals and support staff, the firm provides a full range of commercial and private legal services. Ranked in both the Legal 500 and Chambers directories and awarded the ‘Excellence in Technology’ at the 2016 Law Society Excellence Awards, the firm has a progressive, forward-thinking approach to what is now a fast-moving, evolving market. Dedicated to providing the highest levels of customer experience, the firm embraces new technologies, such as a same-day response service and an expansive website, and has been one of the area’s fastest-growing firms for over a decade. Fisher Jones Greenwood’s IT infrastructure needs to be flexible and up-to-date to adapt to this growth. It also needs to be highly-reliable as the firm’s IT is absolutely critical to the everyday running of the firm: everything from digital dictation, case management, compliance and document production to telephony, CCTV and door entry all depend on it. Peter Carr, Partner and Head of IT at Fisher Jones Greenwood, commented: “Because Six Degrees understands our business and our business needs, it is much more than a provider of communication infrastructure to us: it is a valued strategic partner that obviously listens to its clients. Our inter-office data and voice communication is now extremely reliable with traffic shaped and prioritised via Six Degrees’ platform in order to guarantee quality.” AS A LAW FIRM, WE NEED OUR SOLICITORS TO ALWAYS BE AVAILABLE AND OUR IT INFRASTRUCTURE TO BE RESILIENT. Challenge As a rapidly-growing firm with plans to expand into new premises, the team at Fisher Jones Greenwood had to deal with the challenge of getting its IT and telecoms up and running and thus, completely ready for when staff were set to move in. Carr explained: “Due to a mix of individual suppliers for our network connectivity and telecoms that struggled to work together to create and grow a reliable communications network, problems began to arise. Branch offices were suffering from connectivity problems, printing was taking a long time, voice traffic was suffering quality issues and the provision of new premises was taking much longer than expected.” www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 69