The Client
About
Moore Barlow
Moore Barlow is ranked as one of the UK’s top law firms in The Times Best Law Firms list 2023. It has nearly 500 employees, including 70 partners and 270 lawyers and legal professionals, across six offices around the UK.
The law firm’s focus is primarily on private individuals and families, owners and leaders of fast-moving organisations, and people whose lives have been affected by serious accidents or negligence. Moore Barlow lawyers are recognised in the 2023 edition of Spear’s 500, the definitive guide to the top private client advisers, wealth managers, lawyers and service providers for high-net-worth individuals.
The Challenge
Moore Barlow faced the challenge of reimagining how it could collaborate and communicate better as a combined business, following the merger of Moore Blatch and Barlow Robbins. Modernising and simplifying its disparate telephony processes and functions would empower staff across the six offices to communicate and engage smoothly as one cohesive organisation and feel like one business community.
Responding to forces to reduce risk, increase productivity and improve efficiency as it continues to drive dynamic growth, Moore Barlow had the opportunity to transform the way it delivered telephony services, moving away from the inherited systems which included on premise Skype and 8×8 phone systems.
From a communication standpoint the business was spread across 3 platforms, Non-Telephony Teams, 8×8 and Skype. It was a case of thinking about which application suits our IT Roadmap set out by our CIO and what was the best fit in order to collaborate with other colleagues in the company to arrange a meeting, chat or share and work on documentation.Information Technology Operations Manager, Moore Barlow
The Solution
Moore Barlow selected TeamsLink to provide a unified communications solution for Microsoft Teams to replace their legacy phone system. The 100% cloud platform removes the need for additional telephony systems and provides all the controls and capabilities the law firm requires to help employees have more freedom and flexibility in how and where they work.
Initially engaging with another vendor to migrate the business onto the Microsoft Teams platform, the law firm was let down by poor skillset and project management. It was at this point that Codestone was recommended as a good fit with the right expertise and experience to take on the project.
Codestone’s approach to our needs as an overall project was a better experience than what we had with previous vendors. Their initial approach was more professional, set out clear objectives and timelines and you felt you had the backing of their technical capabilities and resources that were required to manage our telephony transformation, having migrated other businesses this instilled confidence into our decision.Information Technology Operations Manager, Moore Barlow
The business is now 100% Teams based with Codestone as its sole telephony provider. The TeamsLink solution, powered by Wavenet, incorporates internal and external call handling from anywhere, with advanced features such as recording and transcription for compliance and DDIs for professional identity.
Part of the CIO’s vision was to continue to drive the ability to be more agile and one of the key challenges that we faced as part of the merger was how to collaborate better with colleagues, by moving away from the disparate legacy systems. Now we are all using one telephony and communications platform it’s now easier to locate anyone on Teams and this has been a real key stage in the business’s overall technology unification.Information Technology Operations Manager, Moore Barlow
As well as inbound and outbound calls via laptops and mobiles, the business uses Teams for easy-to-access audio and video conferencing and meetings, both internal and external, as well as for recording and transcription purposes to meet compliance requirements. The DDI feature integrates with Outlook and means that it’s easy to search for people by name, not number.
We have a requirement for one of our departments to record all their calls as part of contractual obligations, and using Codestone’s portal we can manage and apply this just to a single team or team member as it was critical to be able to set that up for them from day one. The ability to transcribe calls assists lawyers and saves time and improves efficiency for our lawyers.Information Technology Operations Manager, Moore Barlow
To ensure the IT team could support staff during the rollout, the programme was delivered office by office. Training sessions then followed to help staff get the most out all the Teams features and capabilities. 500 members of staff are now using Teams which has fundamentally changed the way communications are handled across the business.
The solution has brought real agility and collaboration to our communications channels. We can now quickly find and talk with anyone we need to within the business or externally, easily arrange video conferences or meetings and record calls for compliance purposes. It’s giving employees more freedom and flexibility in terms of how and where they work, and fully supports our overall approach to agile working as we drive business growth.Information Technology Operations Manager, Moore Barlow
Continually optimising for business performance
One of the benefits of Teams is that it is intuitive, easy to use and doesn’t require operational support. However, for any issues that do arise, Codestone provides Moore Barlow with ongoing technical support. Users simply log a ticket on the Codestone Support Portal and can track progress and access key reports including real-time monitoring of the systems. The support team also works to guarantee Teams is continually optimised for business performance.
Discover the Benefits
Collaboration
With everyone on Teams, employees are more easily connected and can collaborate faster wherever they are working.
Agility
As part of Moore Barlow’s agile working strategy where every employee now receives a laptop, docking station and headphones, Teams telephony promotes strong engagements in a hybrid work environment and supports the way people want to work.
Call recording
The law firm has better compliance with calls centrally recorded, transcribed and securely stored in the cloud.
Security
As TeamsLink is licensed through Microsoft 365, the highly secure platform is protected by the latest security infrastructure and processes for risk and compliance.
Furure-proofing
The Microsoft platform’s capabilities are continuously enhanced and improved so Moore Barlow can stay agile as it extends the solution in the future to meet growing business needs.
From the outset, Codestone’s approach was professional, methodical and thorough. They had the technical expertise, project management skills and resources to take on this project and deliver it successfully. It was reassuring to know we were in safe hands and expectations on both sides were managed seamlessly.Information Technology Operations Manager, Moore Barlow
Future-ready digital transformation
starts now.
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