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Hughes Paddison strategic IT review

How the strategic IT review from Lights-On Consulting helped Cheltenham-based law firm Hughes Paddison assess its existing technology and business processes

The arrival of a new Practice Manager at Hughes Paddison had prompted the firm to review the strengths, opportunities and challenges with the firm’s IT and wider IT Management.

The firm approached the legal IT specialists at Lights-On Consulting to help deliver that understanding.

The work was a perfect fit for one of our flagship products – the strategic IT review, which is a high level and fast but thorough review of the IT position of a firm, and is targeted at a Board or Managing Partner level audience.

The Lights-On strategic IT review

Our strategic IT review has been refined over the years to ensure that both tactical and strategic recommendations can be made to improve return on investment in IT, and ensure it supports and facilitates business strategy.

The process at Hughes Paddison involved interviewing partners and groups of staff members to understand their challenges and frustrations with IT.

We delved into the opportunities that existed within the present technology environment, looking for new ways of working that would streamline processes using existing technology and allow existing staff to improve ‘getting on with the day job’ without major IT investment.

The Lights-On team also worked with Hughes Paddison to provide existing suppliers with a measured and fair list of issues for discussion and response.

Supplier management

Our job was to then conduct meetings with suppliers and try to establish the root cause of the issues and work with all parties to resolve them.  This is a very delicate process and it takes skill and knowledge to challenge the suppliers in the most appropriate way.

At the conclusion of the strategic IT review, we presented the Hughes Paddison Board with a thorough analysis of the issues and several options to address these issues, with clear recommendations on the way forward.

Re-engaged Lights-On Consulting

Since this work, we were delighted that Hughes Paddison has approached Lights-On to provide further assistance in achieving operational excellence with its use of IT.

The Strategic IT review was exactly what we needed to allow us to develop our IT Strategy. The review was done tactfully and thoroughly. The resulting information was presented to us in a way that enabled all our decision makers to understand our current position. The advice we received on our options was clear and gave us the confidence to move forward and make decisions on our future strategy.

Nigel Ledger, Practice Manager