Freeths

Freeths is a top 50, £100m+ turnover, full service commercial law firm with 12 offices spread across the UK. They pride themselves as business people first, lawyers second and being excellent value.

Their wide ranging expertise supports both people and businesses. With an innovative approach, they offer creative solutions with a focus on understanding needs and delivering tangible results.

The Challenge

Freeths used a previous mobile solution spread across 1000 mobile users and were looking for a trusted, value-added partnership. It was essential to Freeths not to experience any downtime with a seamless migration to a new partner and benefit from cost reductions to UK and International / Roamed usage.

Day to day management of the estate was dealt with internally, including the managing of locked/broken devices, bill management, cost control, mobile device management advice, and support. However, they required further support to handle all of this due to an ever stretched in-house team.

Additionally, Unified Communications were being delivered on a legacy on-premise platform, based on ISDN technology, offering limited resiliency, and agility. As well as having inbound calls based on 08 number ranges, with legacy call plans and limited Business Intelligence.

The Solution

Chess seamlessly migrated Freeths mobile estate and delivered immediate cost savings. As an Enterprise account, Chess introduced a named Enterprise Service Desk support manager to assist with day-to-day inquiries and an Enterprise Account Director to discuss future strategies. As well as a dedicated Service Delivery Manager to act as a point of escalation, arrange quarterly business reviews, support tickets, and advise on technology.

Chess identified vulnerabilities within the mobile device management solution and provided training and guidance. As a result, we were able to implement changes to ensure both Corporate and BYOD devices remained secure and compliant.

Chess and Freeths remain in communication to review and discuss the evolution of the mobility solution to ensure Chess are meeting Freeth’s ongoing requirements. In addition, Chess continues to provide advice and support around Freeths interests in migrating the MDM platform to a new solution, in line with the ‘Teams first’ strategy and adoption of the modern workplace.

Once completed, Chess will look to provide a mobile managed service solution, enabling Freeths to free up internal resources. This will allow Chess to manage all 1st, 2nd, and 3rd service tickets and the security posture.

A main solution Chess were also able to implement, expanding from the initial discussion around mobile, was Adoption and Change Management. Due to stretched internal resources, Chess were able to support and help the adoption process into new technology.

Chess has proposed and conducted an Adoption Change Management program at each stage of the process to ensure high-end user adoption of services and technologies. This has ensured that technologies and services have been delivered on time, without disruption, within budget, and with minimal input required
from Freeths.  

Through this, Chess were also able to look at their wider infrastructure, make suggestions on best practices, and train their internal team on how they could work more efficiently. This has led to an ongoing piece to help improve and support their digital transformation and a more cost-efficient way of working.  

As a result of this value added partnership, Chess and Freeths have discussed and implemented a number of other solutions, including migrating from a legacy on premise Unified Communitions platform with ISDN, to Microsoft Teams Voice. This has supported and enabled Freeths Agile Working policy, provided substantial costs savings, and delivered a single Unified Communications platform.

Chess and Freeths are currently in discussion for the next project. This will be for Chess to migrate inbound services from the current 08 range, managed by Chess, to an 03 range and provide improved Business Intelligence. Enabling Freeths, with Chess’ assistance, to make informed decisions with regards to the inbound IVR strategy and enhancements to the inbound customer journey.  

The Result

Chess has reduced Freeths mobile costs by circa 3k per month, giving them more control and eliminating bill shock.

Chess have also taken over the management of Freeths mobile fleet, including the day-to-day running and management required. As a result, Freeths have been able to work more efficiently with the internal staff they have.

Freeths continue to look to build on and improve their infrastructure through their ongoing relationship with Chess.

“Chess not only helped us save costs by migrating our mobile estate over to them, but they were also able to provide additional support, and identify ongoing improvements across our business. I look forward to continuing our partnership with Chess.”

- Richard Hodkinson, Chief Technology Officer, Freeths