Legal Technology Journal

Eversheds’ collaboration with Computacenter has led to much-needed infrastructure consolidation, coupled with a focus on progress, innovation and the trialling of a hi-tech pilot office.

Eversheds’ outsourcing partnership with Computacenter earlier this year has freed up its IT group to concentrate on development and innovation. This has enabled the firm to create a cutting-edge IT infrastructure for its new London headquarters, while continuing to provide all its offices with reliable IT services and support.

Eversheds is midway through a major reorganisation of its IT architecture, which includes a £27m outsourcing deal with Computacenter that received considerable press coverage earlier this year. LTJ caught up with IT director Malcolm Simms to get an update. He explains that, this time last year, Eversheds’ IT department employed 190 people. In January 2007 the firm transferred 79 support staff to Computacenter as part of a fiveyear outsourcing arrangement that covers the UK service desk, on-site support and data centre hosting and management.

Eversheds’ outsourcing partnership with Computacenter is part of a wider information management strategy, which is focused sharply on consolidating the firm’s IT infrastructure and driving innovation. ‘About 18 months ago, we undertook a comprehensive review of our IT organisation,’ says Simms. ‘We asked ourselves what sort of IT group would best deliver what the firm needed. The first step in our restructuring programme was to outsource the management of our infrastructure – our first-line and local support teams.’ Eversheds is about to outsource its IT training too, transferring another ten people to a specialist provider. Simms has no plans for any further IT outsourcing, however. ‘Some organisations outsource elements of their applications development, but we decided to retain those functions in-house,’ he adds.

Simms has retained a relatively large IT team, but its focus has shifted from day-to-day service delivery to strategic development and innovation. ‘We have invested in our development team and introduced more high-value roles: technical architects, business analysts and project managers,’ he says, adding that it was also important to retain a small in-house support team. ‘We have a retained team of about ten support staff who liaise between our various user groups and the support staff who have transferred to Computacenter. These roles help us retain control of our information environment,’ he explains.

Choosing the right provider

The choice of provider has been key to the success of the outsourcing project – and managing the transition. ‘We wanted to keep our support operation very specific to Eversheds and continue to provide our users with on-site support,’ says Simms. Some outsourcing organisations offer a more commoditised approach, supporting all their clients from a central help desk. Eversheds, on the other hand, has a people-based support operation, with a firstline help desk based in Birmingham. The arrangement with Computacenter enables Eversheds to retain its own on-site help desk there rather than transferring its entire support function to Computacenter’s central help desk in Milton Keynes – which is not part of Simms’ strategy going forward.

In this way, Eversheds retains ownership of its IT support function. The outsourced help desk will remain an integral part of the firm’s operations – and workplace culture – rather than an externally supplied service.

Simms explains that the decision to outsource was based on shifting the direction of the firm’s information strategy, rather than improving the performance of Eversheds’ help desk services. In fact, shortly before the outsourcing decision was made, Eversheds was voted help desk of the year in the 2006 Legal Technology Awards. The challenge, therefore, was to maintain the quality of the service under the new arrangements.

Infrastructure consolidation

Transferring support functions to Computacenter has enabled Simms and his team to concentrate on consolidating the firm’s IT infrastructure into two central data centres, which will be hosted and managed by Computacenter. Simms envisages that this will reduce pressure on the help desk. ‘If we can reduce the number of problems that are generated in our IT infrastructure, fewer incidents will be reported to the help desk,’ he says. ‘It may be that we built an incredibly good help desk because there were lots of issues with our infrastructure. So the next step has been to invest in the development of our infrastructure.’

The consolidation exercise is driven by infrastructure issues that reflect the way Eversheds has evolved. As the firm was initially formed by the merger of separate firms around the UK, it follows that each of its ten regional offices in the country have a lot of legacy infrastructure. Simms underlines the massive scale of the consolidation programme. ‘Because we’ve grown by merger, every time we expanded more infrastructure was integrated into the system. As a result, we now have 500 physical hardware servers spread around ten offices. The complexity of our infrastructure was driving the need for comprehensive onsite local support,’ he explains. ‘As the firm fully integrated some years ago, so our IT infrastructure needs to catch up and support that integrated structure. We’re now consolidating all our data into two fully replicated data centres hosted by Computacenter.’

In some cases, this involves a 20-to-one consolidation – 20 physical servers become one virtual server. Simms observes that the chance of something going wrong on any of 20 physical servers is a lot higher than the chance of something going wrong on one larger server that’s in a data centre. ‘And if anything does go wrong, we can immediately click over to another server in a different data centre,’ he adds. ‘So the foundations of the system are a lot more stable. The idea is that by the end of this year we’ll have very little infrastructure in each office, hence the projected need for less local support.’

Managing risk

The new data centres enable Eversheds to take a firm-wide approach to business continuity. ‘We’re completely changing our risk profile,’ says Simms. ‘We realised that by transferring everything to a central data centre, we were effectively putting all our eggs in one basket, so we needed to consider business continuity and disaster recovery capability. Consequently, we decided to invest in two separate data centres. ‘Not only are they located at separate sites, but we’re able to have a mirror image of everything in one data centre in the other. So if one fails, we can immediately switch over to the other.’

It was important to locate the data centres at an optimum distance from each other. Simms explains that the two sites are far enough apart from a disaster recovery point of view, but close enough to make the telecommunications between the two cost effective, because the greater the distance between them, the longer the network connections need to be, increasing the cost involved.

A cohesive IT architecture

Eversheds continues to expand, having shifted its strategy from merger to organic growth through its network of UK and international offices, including one in Shanghai that was established last year. This is underpinned by establishing a cohesive IT architecture that will enable the firm to network its legal services from London around its regional offices. The introduction of the new data centres is conducive to that approach because all the firm’s key applications – including the document management system and Microsoft Exchange e-mail – are located in one place. A new data network, including VOIP telephony, has recently been introduced, linking every office to the central data centres.

The system is completely resilient as there are dual network links to each office. ‘From a technology point of view, this gives us a fresh opportunity to do things differently because we have a stable central infrastructure with access pipes into all our offices,’ Simms says, adding that some of the Magic Circle firms have had similar capability for some time, so in effect Eversheds is playing catch-up. However, while many of the big City firms have always had central IT systems, Eversheds faces the challenge of bringing together separate systems from its regional and international locations into a single network.

The data centres have been built to Eversheds’ specification and the technology is now in place. Simms and his team are currently migrating all the firm’s business applications from its different offices into the data centres. He envisages that the process will be completed in the next six months. ‘As the applications are shifted over, the existing technology will be decommissioned. Essentially, all the technology that goes into the data centre will be brand new.’

When the data centres are up and running, Simms plans to introduce new applications; however, during the transition he is concentrating on maintaining a stable system. In any case, many of the firm’s existing applications are relatively new. ‘We recently upgraded to the latest version of Microsoft Exchange for e-mail, and next year we plan to roll out a number of new applications, including portal and case management technology, which will all be hosted from the data centre,’ he says, emphasising the importance of consolidating the platform before introducing new, cutting-edge technology.

Minimising disruption to users

The main priority in a legal environment is to avoid disruption to users. It is therefore a key challenge to execute a major infrastructure change while minimising the impact on the business. A critical element of the data centre project, therefore, is that it takes place in the background, allowing the firm to continue with business as usual. So far, users are entirely unaware of any changes, but Simms believes that transitioning the technology and the services will be a challenging time for his department. ‘We still have the legacy infrastructure to deal with, but we also have new people and processes. At the same time, we’re setting up an entirely new centralised operation.’

Although, in theory, Eversheds’ 4,000 users shouldn’t be affected by the move to the data centres, Simms anticipates that issues may arise. He has addressed this eventuality by establishing a network of departmental agents – senior PAs who have each taken responsibility for a department. ‘We’re working with them to let them know when we are migrating applications that affect their office,’ he says, adding that a lot of the work is scheduled to take place during evenings and weekends to minimise disruption during office hours.

Simms has recent experience of successfully managing significant change. When support services and staff were transferred to Computacenter at the beginning of this year, he agreed what he describes as a steady state for the first three months of the outsourcing arrangement. That meant that people and services were transferred and Computacenter took the responsibility for them, but nothing else was changed for three months. This enabled Computacenter to observe Eversheds’ support operations and decide what they wanted to retain and how they could improve the system to achieve further efficiencies. As Simms explains, this successfully avoided any initial sense of disruption among users. ‘In fact, in March some of our very senior partners asked me when we were going to transfer to Computacenter and I had to tell them that we had already done so on 1 January!”

By the time Computacenter’s systems and processes were implemented in mid-April, everyone was more comfortable with the new arrangements. Although some of the changes were visible, Simms and his team had minimised disruption to users and to the business. ‘There’s been no tangible business impact and we’ve changed a lot in the period since April,’ he says. ‘By July all the changes that we had implemented were embedded into our infrastructure and we had returned to the same level of stability that we had in that steady-state period.’ Staff changes have been one of the most obvious consequences of the new arrangements.

At the end of the steady-state period, Computacenter introduced some new staff to Eversheds’ on-site service desk in Birmingham. Naturally, despite having been trained, those people were not immediately as effective as the internal staff they replaced, some of whom had been with the firm for many years. However, this was unavoidable, as part of the incentive for Eversheds’ staff to transfer was the opportunity to work on different projects and develop their careers. ‘Computacenter has brought new people into our support service and moved some of our former staff to their other accounts,’ explains Simms. ‘So we had a combination of new people joining our service desk and some former employees who have transferred using new tools and processes. As a result there were times when the help desk struggled to cope with peak demand, but I’m pleased to say that by the end of July the service had returned to normal.’

Redistributing IT resources

Eversheds’ partnership with Computacenter has enabled it to consolidate and redistribute its IT resources to create a virtual network that underpins the cohesiveness of the firm by bringing together all its information services into a single environment. Simms explains the business case. ‘We pay a monthly fee to Computacenter, who provide all the equipment we use. Over five years, we will be spending no more than we would normally invest in our infrastructure and service, and we will reinvest the projected efficiency savings into new technology and innovation.

Although the arrangement will not save the firm significant money for five years, we have redistributed our IT budget into a lot smarter spend, such as improving disaster recovery capability. When we’re through the transition, our in-house IT group will no longer have to worry about maintaining our systems, as that will be handled by Computacenter’s professional team.’ Of course, maintaining day-to-day operations is critical to the business – Eversheds’ lawyers need to know they can rely on their IT system – but outsourcing these services to a specialist provider has freed up Simms and his in-house IT department to concentrate on developing innovative new projects and introducing cutting-edge applications that improve client service and help keep the firm ahead of the game. ‘Traditionally, 80% of everything we did in IT was about keeping day-to-day operations going, while 20% was about innovation, new projects and looking at the future,’ he says. ‘The goal is to flip that completely so that 80% of our efforts are directed at development, innovation and business improvements.’

An innovation partnership

With that in mind, Simms and his team, in partnership with Computacenter and Microsoft, have set up a model office to pilot the cutting-edge applications that the firm hopes to implement when its London headquarters moves to new offices next year. ‘It’s a live hi-tech business environment for 16 of our real estate feeearners,’ he explains. ‘It has all new furniture and replicates the planned layout of our new offices. We have implemented a fully wireless environment and are trialling all the latest Microsoft applications, including advanced communications technology such as Corporate Presence and desk-top video conferencing.’

This project too was facilitated by Eversheds’ partnership with Computacenter. Not only did it enable the IT group to concentrate on innovation, but the support of a strategic partner increased its leverage with major suppliers such as Microsoft and Cisco. Furthermore, Simms established an innovation council, which currently includes Microsoft, Cisco, Mytel and of course Computacenter. Its remit was to fit out Eversheds’ model office with the latest technology. The project started last November, and the model office has been live since mid-June.

The pilot technology is also fully integrated into Eversheds’ actual corporate environment. ‘For example, the people working in the model office are part of our e-mail system, but they are using a more advanced system which includes applications such as Corporate Presence. This means that in addition to your e-mail distribution lists, you can see who is online and whether they’re in the office or using remote or mobile access. Although they’re all working in the same office, they can video conference and instant message each other.’

Eversheds has been able to establish what is effectively an innovation lab at the same time as transforming its IT infrastructure because it has offloaded its day-to-day maintenance and support functions to Computacenter.

Although Simms and his team are working up a case study of what life is like using the latest technology, including behavioural analysis to examine how people are reacting to the design of both the office space and the technology within it, the project’s success is already clear – demonstrated by the fact that the pilot group are desperate to continue using the new technology. ‘The original plan was to pilot these cutting-edge applications, evaluate them and decide what to deploy in the new offices, but now it is a matter of working out how the group can continue using the new system!’

Wireless networking: automatic for the people

The pilot finishes at the end of August and the office move is scheduled for April 2008, so Simms plans to look at the results and the feedback and decide which applications should go into the new office. He explains that the infrastructure will be ready to go because it will already be in the new data centre. Furthermore, the office will be built for wired and wireless access. ‘It will be a matter of deriving the maximum advantage from wireless,’ he says. ‘In our model office it is automatic – people can walk in using their mobile and the network is able to recognise that they’ve now entered the office. As it’s cheaper to switch to the internal network, it automatically clicks over – they don’t have to stop the mobile and call back on the landline. Everybody has laptops and we’re trying out different types of laptop. However, a lot of the equipment we’re trialling is very expensive and we have to decide how much of it we want to deploy from day one.’

Don’t drop the pilot

The IT group has also benefited from this experiment. ‘It’s a shame that the pilot office will have to be dismantled, but we’ve learned that it’s good to have an innovation lab that you can continually upgrade, so we’ll have to set one up in the new offices,’ says Simms. ‘The 16 people want to keep the laptops, the Corporate Presence and the video conferencing. We now realise how valuable some of these applications are – and that was the point of doing a pilot!’ The next step is to decide which new applications to take on to the new offices.

The right fit

Finally, Simms reiterates that the initial choice of vendor continues to underpin the success of the strategy going forward. ‘We had to be very selective about whom we chose and size was a significant factor in our decision,’ he says. ‘With Computacenter, we’re right in their target market, which is organisations of 2,000 to 10,000 employees. This means that, if I need to, I can get senior-level attention.’ Because Eversheds and Computacenter are the right size for each other, they are a good strategic fit and this clearly underpins a dynamic partnership that combines efficiency and innovation to the benefit of both businesses.