Intelligent Office and BigHand announce partnership as law firms continue to drive optimal support service models
Market-leading support services provider to the UK legal sector, Intelligent Office (IO) and leading legal technology provider, BigHand have elected to work more closely together to lead law firms during a time of operational transformation accelerated by the pandemic.
With over 850 employees across more than 60 client sites and three shared services centres, IO is the expert provider of outsourced support solutions to the legal and professional services sectors including executive/personal assistants, document production, legal admin, client on-boarding and general office support. They also provide consultative guidance to firms on how they can effectively structure their support teams for maximum efficiency, value for money and optimum service levels and have worked with many UK Top 150 firms over the past 10 years to reengineer their support functions.
Earlier this year IO became a client of BigHand’s after selecting BigHand’s legal workflow management solution to streamline and optimise the way work is delegated, monitored and completed within their shared services operations based in Scotland and Bristol.
Having reviewed the market for an upgrade to their legacy custom-built workflow tool, IO was impressed with the range of functionality that the BigHand Workflow Management offered, particularly how automated the task capture is, which reduced manual processing time whilst also making a wide range of productivity and utilisation data available in real time. It is also very easy for IO to integrate with the rapidly increasing number of law firms using BigHand Workflow Management which means firms can send work to IO’s shared services centres seamlessly, which is a real focus in the current market where maximum flexibility is a focus.
Rachel McCorry, IO’s CEO commented on the partnership, “For most law firms the transition to agile working has centred around where people are working and how they are accessing systems. This, however, is only half the story, and to complement the “where”, IO have been delivering the “how”. Our innovative support solutions allow IO teams to work seamlessly, irrespective of physical location, with support tasks such as PAs, legal admin, billing and so on optimised for the new hybrid working.”
“Of course, all the old criteria remain in play – driving efficiencies, managing risk and lowering costs, but due thought and consideration must also be given to how best to optimise a dispersed team, who are servicing agile fee earners. Working in partnership with BigHand and their Workflow Management Solution enables IO to optimise the relationships between people, processes, and technology. BigHand Workflow Management provides a level of control and visibility into our high-performing teams enabling us to fully optimise our hybrid support operations.”
Alison Bilgin, COO at IO goes on to say, “IO wanted to partner with an organisation which understands the nuances of the legal sector and the challenges law firms face as deeply as we do. There are other providers of workflow tools in the market but none with the focus, market share and expertise of BigHand.”
As the only legal-specific workflow technology on the market, BigHand Workflow Management allows tasks to be sent to a central workflow, where they are automatically routed to the right skilled resource, at the right cost to the business. The centralised view of work can be accessed by desktop or mobile devices to check on the progress of work at any time.
Matthew Davis, Global Solutions Director at BigHand comments: “The surge we have seen among our clients upgrading from our voice technology to our advanced workflow solution has been phenomenal. The evolution of the technology, all based on client feedback, has positioned it as the only solution on the market to truly manage these processes and surface the relevant data to inform overall resourcing decisions.”
We’ve always worked closely with IO as we share many clients, such as Pinsent Masons who worked with IO on creating a new legal support structure, underpinned by BigHand’s Workflow Management solution. IO are experts at helping law firms restructure their operations and then deliver services to law firms whilst also supporting them achieve their longer term operational objectives so we’re delighted they’ve identified our workflow management solution as a key tool to support the transformational change agenda. We’re looking forward to working with them even more closely and supporting law firms to achieve more in the future.”
