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Focus of study:
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Hardware & software |
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Sector:
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Legal |
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Impact:
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Local |
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| Business Opportunity |
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Ray Broadbridge
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Last year
Ian Forrester took on a new job with Swinburne Maddison solicitors
in Durham, as Practice Manager. It was soon obvious to him that
the firm just wasn't getting the best out of its computer systems.
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| Ian recalls: "What
I needed was for someone to take an informed look at what we
had, where we wanted to go, and tell us how to achieve it at
minimum cost. Clearly the solution had to be reliable - our
business involves producing paperwork and moving money, and
if anything stops that happening, it's very bad news." |
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| The firm enlisted the
help of Ray Broadbridge, a TMB accredited adviser, from Nectar
Electronics who are a one-stop shop for IT supply and support
in the North-East. |
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| Business Solution |
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To establish the full range
of requirements expected from a computer system, Ray's first step
was to find out what the people actually using it expected.
Ray says:
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| "When I talked to the
users at Swinburne Maddison I found they didn't want anyone to interfere
with their computers or stop them from using their favourite versions
of old word processing software. They had put up with the server crashing
3 times a week, they each knew the idiosyncrasies of their own systems,
and they had a lot of work to do before the post went!" |
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| E-mail and internet facilities
were identified as a another vital requirements - the firm had so
far managed without it, but an increasing number of clients and other
practices now expected to be able to send solicitors their documents
via the Internet. Access to a wealth of up-to-date legal information
appealed to the partners. |
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| Ray helped Ian develop a plan
which involved replacing the oldest hardware, upgrading where it was
practicable, and starting afresh from the software point of view with
the same version of Windows and the same application software on everyone's
machine. To make the users feel comfortable with this, it had to be
done with minimum disruption and taking great care not to loose someone's
favourite template for a deed of covenant. |
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Ian Forrester
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Aside from word processing, Swinburne
Maddison use some specialist software for accounting. "My
greatest fear", said Ian, "Was that I might be stuck
in the middle of a fight between the hardware supplier and the
software guys when things went wrong. Nectar's staff avoided
that by talking to the software firm at the outset, and making
sure that everyone understood what was happening." |
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| Benefits |
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With some 30 workstations,
it would not make economic sense for Swinburne Maddison to employ
a dedicated IT support person. However, every business needs to know
where it can turn for sensible advice, and rapid help if things do
go wrong. The link between adviser and client can be just this sort
of beneficial relationship.
Ian sums this up:
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| "Having a working partnership
with Nectar means that even if I'm away from the office, I can rely
on them to fix any serious problems without wrecking my system or
upsetting the staff " |
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