As a large, successful law firm, Mallesons relies on a multitude of processes to manage its business. It is mandatory to manage these processes effectively and efficiently to service external and internal client requirements in the best possible way. As part of a process improvement effort, the firm sought to reduce administrative costs – particularly after an internal study revealed that over 200 processes were associated with this area of its business. The firm realized that by automating administrative processes, it would be able to take better control of many business functions, focus more of its energy on clients and contain costs.
To accomplish its goal, Mallesons decided to add Business Process Management (BPM) technology to its core technology infrastructure. The firm put together an extensive business case to substantiate associated costs, cost savings and other benefits. The business case showed that the investment could be recouped within three years by automating just one key process.
Mallesons set out to identify a BPM vendor that could effectively manage its enterprise processes and ultimately selected Metastorm to help establish a corporate-wide BPM initiative to streamline and automate core business processes. A key differentiator for Metastorm was that it stood out as a genuine enterprise product that was able to be leveraged across the enterprise. The firm was also impressed by Metastorm’s ability to enable rapid process development and deployment and integrate with core applications and databases.
Metastorm BPM® is helping Mallesons take control of its processes through automation. To date over 40 processes have been automated. By focusing initially on administrative processes, Mallesons was able to achieve a number of important ‘quick wins’, ramp-up its development expertise and build a solid base of support. The business gained confidence for BPM, and then moved on to more demanding processes involving legal practice and client facing processes.
Mallesons has also tailored the front end of Metastorm BPM to suit the needs of its user community and now has a fully customized user interface. Its daily email digest, for example, aggregates To Do list items and alerts for a person, grouping items in order of importance, with client related activities highlighted as a top priority. For many items in a digest there is a ‘one-click’ approve or acknowledge button.
A sample of the major processes implemented at Mallesons include:
Leave management - this process covers all types of leave requests such as personal, annual, parental, compassionate, study and time in lieu leave. Metastorm BPM manages over 15,000 leave requests per year for 2,100 employees and is also integrated with Mallesons HR system, PeopleSoft. The integration allows for data to be fed from PeopleSoft to Metastorm BPM, as well as to other systems, like its web-based corporate directory where it updates status information on employees. A unique feature of this integration is the ability to view employee information on the corporate directory and identifying whether or not an employee is in the office or on leave. Similarly, status information sourced from secondment and training processes are also fed into the corporate directory.
Meetings, Clients & Visitors - this process manages around 26,000 meeting room bookings per year across the firm, in addition to managing visitor registration, catering, and the room resources needed for the meetings. The firm uses a Cisco VoIP phone system, which has also been integrated with Metastorm BPM, giving employees the ability to simply reserve a conference room for a meeting via the room’s phone. Another key benefit of this process is being able to use the data Metastorm BPM has collected on meeting room usage to help better plan fit-outs of office conference room facilities.
Publications - the process that manages the procedures involved in publishing material to the firm’s website. Prior to Metastorm, this process was handled manually and took up to five working days. Using Metastorm, it takes less than 24 hours from initiation to publishing. Metastorm also helps the firm’s Marketing department manage procedures for corporate events and integrates with the firm’s CRM, InterAction.
Fee Estimates - this process tracks and alerts partners when matter estimates reach or exceed an agreed threshold. Metastorm is integrated into the firm’s financial system, Keystone for this process that helps keep lawyers and clients informed on fee control.
Mallesons has been very successful in automating and integrating Metastorm into its core technology infrastructure. Metastorm’s flexibility enabled the firm to integrate the product with Exchange, HP Service Desk (user help system), Keystone (financial system), PeopleSoft (HR), Web environment (intra and internet), InterAction CRM, DeskSite (document management), Blackberry handheld devices and its Cisco phone system.
Mallesons’ goal is to release one new process or an extension to a process in production each month. The firm is also beginning to automate processes that support its legal teams and clients including capacity planning and client secondments.
