International law firm Trowers & Hamlins, a top 50 firm in the UK, took full advantage of its move to Elite 3E as an opportunity to drive more strategic and operational value from the firm’s financial system by putting it at the center of its business applications environment. To help achieve this, the firm engaged Harbor to implement 3E, advise the Finance team on the redesign of business workflows, and integrate 3E with other strategic applications used by the firm, including Intapp Intake and Conflicts.
Following the implementation, Trowers & Hamlin saw its business applications stack as a rich foundation for further innovation, and engaged Harbor to provide strategic applications management services on an ongoing basis.
“We recognised that our rollout of 3E was a critical window during which we could start to up level the value our financial system delivers to the firm. In parallel, we implemented Intapp to modernise our conflicts clearance and new matter intake processes,” says Richard Peecock, business change lead, Trowers & Hamlins.
“Working with the Harbor team across both Elite 3E and Intapp has allowed our firm to take a holistic approach to our business applications strategy.”
A natural next step
Following the initial implementation, which included integrations between 3E and Intapp, selecting Harbor to provide ongoing managed services for both applications was a natural next step.
“Rather than risk sitting still after the implementation, we wanted to extend our in-house capabilities and make sure we were getting our return on investment from these strategic applications,” says Peecock.
Harbor’s managed services provide the firm with proactive support, applications management, and technology for both monitoring and improving data quality over time. In addition, the firm’s internal team can tap into the 3E and Intapp skills of Harbor experts on-demand to address complex issues or to optimise performance.
“The team of experts from Harbor has been embedded in our applications environment from the outset. Whether it’s templates or collections or reconciliations or intake, I can always go to the Harbor expert who knows that specific area.”
Data integrity and insights
In evaluating data hygiene, the team identified that while time recording performance was good across the firm, there was room for improvement. With buy-in from management, Harbor’s ongoing service includes technology to help enforce prompt and accurate posting of time by fee earners. This has resulted in time being recorded sooner, as well as time not being overlooked and this has lead to an increase in chargeable hours – in addition to ensuring that the data captured in 3E provides an up-to-date view of business performance.
Having Harbor’s expert resources there and available has provided a great degree of reassurance that when issues become complex or challenging, we have a partner who understands the applications as well as the firm. Andrew Foster, Financial Systems Manager at Trowers & Hamlins
To help the firm improve data integrity, Harbor’s service includes monitoring tech connected to both Elite 3E and Data Insights to proactively monitor issues with data and warehouse building processes.
“Reporting using 3E Data Insights unlocks the ability for our firm to perform sophisticated data-driven analysis. At the same time, we know that ensuring data quality requires focused attention,” he says. “Working with the Harbor service and their team of experts who know 3E Data Insights inside-out gives us confidence that our underlying data is accurate, complete, consistent, and timely.”
Managing upgrades operationally and financially
Planning and executing a major upgrade – at a time determined by Trowers & Hamlins – will help the firm better manage its total cost of ownership.
“It is potentially the biggest payback from the managed service,” he says. “When you add up the hours that go into doing an upgrade, debugging it, doing the testing, and getting the little gremlins sorted out, it is a huge amount of time with a price tag to match.“
“Harbor’s strategic applications management approach means we don’t have to dedicate internal resources to perform, test, and troubleshoot the upgrade – and we are spreading the total cost of the upgrade over time.”
Experts on-tap provide confidence and 24/7 operations
Since going live, the systems have been running and available 24/7 for its offices across the UK and Middle East.
“Having recently joined the firm, it has been encouraging to see how Harbor’s managed services team have been supporting us with the day-to-day running of everything Elite and Intapp,” said Andrew Foster, finance systems manager, Trowers & Hamlins.
“Having Harbor’s expert resources there and available has provided a great degree of reassurance that when issues become complex or challenging, we have a partner who understands the applications as well as the firm,” he adds.
“The collaboration means that we can operate effectively without having to resource all that specialist knowledge internally, as the firm continues to develop and grow in accordance with our strategic plan.”
About Trowers & Hamlins
Trowers is an international law firm with over 170 partners and more than 1000 people located across the UK, Middle East and Asia. Through its UK and overseas offices, the firm has developed a dynamic corporate, commercial and litigation practice with particular strengths in real estate, care, education, energy, leisure, finance and project work.
This engagement was initiated by Pinnacle, which is now part of Harbor.
Partners
- Business intake & conflicts
- Financial management
- Managed services