Goughs Managed Service Provider project
This client case study focuses on one of our core legal IT consultancy products: Managed Service Provider procurement and implementation
Goughs were seeking a Managed Service Provider (MSP) to give them a modern, flexible and robust IT service that would allow their internal team to focus on business IT projects. Following the Strategic IT Review that the Lights-On team had recently carried out for Goughs, we were delighted to be appointed as independent experts to guide on the procurement and implementation of the (MSP).
At the start of the procurement process Lights‐On quickly identified areas that required attention and consideration:
1) How to deliver the business and technology strategy?
2) Bringing all staff along on the journey, winning the hearts and minds
3) Timing pressures due to End‐of‐Life software
4) Utilising our supplier knowledge to resolve legacy technology challenges
5) Ensuring the firm understands and can manage the investment cycle
The process coincided with the Covid‐19 pandemic and all of the regulations, which created new obstacles that we worked on together to overcome.
Virtual tender process
We took information from our Strategic IT Review and supplemented this with a deep‐dive technical discovery to ensure there were no surprises for all parties during the tender exercise. All this information was used to run a competitive, virtual tender process.
Lights‐On took Goughs through a process specification and facilitated all the supplier communications leveraging our specialist market knowledge. We invited suppliers to tender and propose their solutions over video conference, and we systematically cross-referenced the services specifications with the requirements ensuring a fair “apples with apples” comparison.
Once Goughs decided which supplier best fit the requirements, we assisted with the commercial
negotiations and gave advice on the contracts from a technology, commercial and supplier management point of view.
Leveraging tech in a more systematic way
With the IT Service looked after by the new Managed Service Partner, the IT Team at Goughs can
concentrate on strategic and business-focused projects. The firm is now looking at how technology can add value to its existing legal disciplines and how it can exploit technology to generate new legal service lines.
Agile working
This project allowed the firm to embrace agile working which, aligned to the firm’s strategy, turned out to be useful in a global pandemic with the
government mandate to work at home.
One of the more frequent comments we receive at the completion stages of the projects we work on is our ability to keep them moving. We maintain momentum through each stage and we get projects completed all whilst consulting on the peripheral issues that could pose a threat.
Lights‐On Consulting facilitated vendor relationships and ascertained the desired business outcomes from the senior leadership team and translated them into a technology strategy so that Goughs now has both a strong supplier for its managed service and a robust IT strategy.
“Lights-On approached this project with a highly detailed and systematic methodology. This proved essential given the tight deadlines linked to our end of life software. Lights-On helped us to fully understand Goughs’ business IT needs and ensured the choices we made would result in a future proofed system.
The expert knowledge and guidance through the multi-phased tendering process was invaluable, and something we would have struggled to successfully achieve without Lights-On. The team at Lights-On were also great at keeping us on track and managed all of this with great humour through the challenges of the first Covid lockdown.”
Matthew Drew, Partner
“Lights-On Consulting were a much needed breath of fresh air for our internal IT Department and its long overdue re-direction, end of life equipment and looming Microsoft deadlines.
As a Department, we have been released from the firefighting IT issues of old and unsustainable support methods to a robust, subscription based IT package enabling us to concentrate our efforts on project work and the firms IT strategic objectives.
I have no doubt, without the Lights-On approach, we would never have got to where we are currently in such a short time and in such an effective way and most importantly in the depths of a global pandemic!”
Gary Denham, IT Manager