2004 WINNER
Geoff Griffin (l), Andy Rice and Peter Robinson of Berwin Leighton Paisner
What appeals is the way IT is becoming the
mystery ingredient which adds ease of use to the
mundane. Old techniques and methods are
being wrapped up with IT as a better way of
presenting, harnessing and operating a basic
business process such as marketing or cost
budgeting and control.
Berwin Leighton Paisner has adopted this
approach with their communications. These are
commercially attractive, innovative, involve
everyone, and really put into place a good live
example of having a virtual office at home in all
ways - phones, PC, etc.
Computer Telephony Integration has been with
us a long time but very few firms use it. Voice
over IP phone technology is new, and few firms
have harnessed it sensibly. Adding digital voice
recognition for something simple like phone lists
is a nice touch.
RUNNER UP
The Pinsent's entry is heavyweight in presentation, and good on evidence of take up (or roll-out) but is primarily really a CRM rather than an IT project. Although it may be a complex piece of bespoke programming, it is unclear from the submission what the competitive advantage is. Nonetheless, delivering the CRM interface to a variety of users and interfaces, including the Blackberry, is commendable.
The clever bit is encouraging users, including all the firm's contacts, to keep their own profile of interests up to date so that they can see a relevant personalised view of the firm's portal to the web site and other information. How to keep your marketing database up to date - get your prospects to do it for you - even down to filling in their leisure interests. Very neat!
3RD PLACE
The encouraging commonality is that all the entrants rely largely on existing, often well-proven technology or ideas, and focus on applying that technology in a business in more widespread or more rigorous way. At face value, the Wragge & Co submission seems little more than the sensible use of historical hours, billing and project management data to help with predictive budgeting of new proposals and projects. Many firms try to do this, but at Wragge it has been wrapped up as rather mysterious and special - and is being cleverly marketed internally and externally. As they say, the technology is straightforward - they go on to say the concept is visionary and the results phenomenal.
The Patent Pending and Project X monikers add intrigue, and applying sound business accounting principles to law firm projects is perhaps an innovative move, but from an IT perspective it is nothing special. What is special is using IT and bringing excitement and marketing expertise to encourage the use of well tried financial techniques from the project management and construction industries.