Local Legal Services Firm
DNSnetworks worked with a local legal services firm, specializing in practice areas such as business law, international arbitration, intellectual property, litigation, real estate, tax, immigration, and individual legal requirements, they are committed to exceptional legal service standards. Their approach focuses on understanding clients’ overall goals, anticipating long-term issues, and fostering enduring relationships. With over 120 employees and five decades of industry experience, the firm consistently delivers excellence, transparency, and client-centered outcomes.
Services Provided
Managed Enterprise Networks, Fully Managed IT, Networking, Hybrid Cloud Solutions, Backup & Disaster Recovery, Managed IT Services, Remote & Onsite Support
Challenge
A local legal services firm faced an intricate challenge in the existing infrastructure of their systems before starting the project with DNSnetworks. The firm's infrastructure was over-engineered, not designed for scalability, and outdated. DNSnetworks' task was to take over the environmental management, perform a thorough discovery, document the system, and provide a phased approach to simplify environment, ensuring its security and robust performance. Our teams meticulously planned, reviewed, and scheduled for a course of 12 months to guarantee a successful roll-out. The project scope included improvement of over 60 items, from overhauling 140 workstations, 25 Virtual Machines, and 6 Physical Servers to setting up enterprise SAN, secure wired & wireless access networks, multi-WAN services, and Hybrid Cloud connectivity among others.
The challenge predominantly impacted customer communication and their acceptance of change, as opposed to the technology aspect. We found that altering business procedures is difficult on both individual and professional levels. To navigate these changes, DNSnetworks and the firm employed a structured change management process. While the implementation of technical aspects consumed a short timeframe, the most time-consuming aspect was the end-user training.
Some key factors contributing to these challenges include:
- Assignment of resources for project management
- Established change management process
- Utilization of DNSnetworks' ISO 9001 IT service certified experience
- Deployment of highly skilled technicians in infrastructure management
- Provision of an IT helpdesk capable of addressing basic user technical requests
Prior to hiring DNSnetworks, there were no attempts made to address the problem. The need was to refurbish an environment which required perpetual monitoring, provide guidance on an over-designed infrastructure, all whilst ensuring the highest level of security standards.
By tackling this challenge, the firm hoped to achieve consistent security enhancements and a dependable infrastructure. Their acknowledgment of IT managed services' importance has contributed significantly to our successful partnership. We're grateful for their faith in our team and look forward to working together for many more years to come.
Result
The phased approach used for our client's digital adoption plans yielded mutually beneficial results, marking a significant milestone in our joint endeavor. This successful outcome was made possible by dividing the project into multiple manageable micro-projects that facilitated efficient implementation with a keen sensitivity to customer experience and acceptance of technological modifications. This technique ensured that all tasks were executed with minimal disruptions to daily business operations.
Upon reflection, the results aligned favorably with the initial project objectives, despite the remaining maintenance windows requirements. The bulk of the projects were concluded successfully, reaffirming the accuracy of the expectations set during the project documentation phase.
A crucial component of this success was the implementation of the new backup and disaster recovery solution. This revamped approach led to both immediate and long-term operational cost savings, negating the requirement for any additional capital expenditure on equipment purchases.
Another crucial development was the recommendation made by the advanced technical services team during the initial discovery process. A number of services were deemed unnecessary and were thus decommissioned, or consolidated, leading to further operational cost reductions and paving the way for sustainable savings for future hardware replacement needs.
From this transformative journey, we gained some invaluable insights. We realized that technology is not a realm of ever-increasing complexity, but rather something that should consistently be simplified over time. Understanding the environment and aligning it with the customer's goals are fundamental steps towards efficient technology planning. Furthermore, we observed that maintaining clear and transparent communication throughout severe change processes is instrumental in fostering healthy and long-lasting business relations.
This project has had a profound influence on our future plans and strategies. The enduring business relationship built during this process has proven to be a cornerstone to our vast success, underpinning our organic growth. Regardless of the firm's size, maintaining high-quality output has been our priority. This project, spanning over eight months, has fortified our capabilities, especially by enhancing our internal documentation and strategic project management processes, ultimately paving the path for future endeavors.