Industry case study from MiniSoft: Credit where credit’s due
This article was also featured as an industry case study in the February 2016 issue of Briefing. To read the issue in full, download Briefing.
A strategy of international expansion has clearly served DLA Piper rather well – securing the firm steady and balanced growth by globally meeting diverse client needs. But it also comes at a perhaps surprising cost. With so many time zones covered, there is just no night time anymore – and that means backroom processes run the risk of eating into productivity.
“The firm has offices all the way from the UK to Australia – and very few gaps between them. There’s a maximum of a couple of hours of ‘overnight’,” explains Ashley Hamblin, head of finance systems development.
DLA wants, he says, to create batches of automatic tasks, statements and letters for accounts receivable when people aren’t using the system – when they’re asleep. “It’s perfectly possible to run things during the work day – but it’s more efficient for everyone involved if you don’t.
That, in a nutshell, is why the firm decided to upgrade collections management to Minisoft’s ARCS 2G system. Since the switch, Hamblin says, the time to complete a UK monthly statement run has been quartered – from four hours to just one.
Nothing to lose
Another advantage is that Minisoft collaborated closely with DLA to develop a solution specifically better suited to phased international rollout. Different regions can be moved to the new system as necessary without causing any confusion. Currently the UK, Belgium and the Middle East are enjoying the benefit – with Germany and Australia soon set to follow.
“Each of our regions has its own credit control department but, of course they also need to work together,” explains Hamblin.
“They need visibility of one another’s work. We couldn’t allow a situation where we don’t have a truly global system.” And Minisoft’s development of a dual-extract system bespoke to this requirement means the firm can temporarily have two systems simultaneously performing one global function, he says.
“This ‘mirroring’ allows people on the new system to see work any other jurisdiction is still doing on the legacy one. Work never needs to be reconverted when a jurisdiction gets the switch. It has been constantly flowing into the new system all along.”
Meanwhile, once a jurisdiction has moved across, the system has the flexibility to tailor credit control processes such as escalation rules.
“We can redistribute work from one set of people in a team to another based on the age of debt, for example,” Hamblin says. “It may be preferable for a different part of the workforce to be chasing notably old debt – perhaps a specialist in that area.”
The legacy system (6.8) has managers assessing and reassigning such things manually. In future, it could be automatic. “We’ll be alerted to changing scenarios faster and there’s a smaller margin for error, as well as the efficiency gains.”
Production of reports for partners can also be improved, because auto-burst functionality will send out automatic emails with separate slices of the full report.
Even before those changes are implemented, there’s no need for credit controllers to run and save multiple reports to compare versions of the same job. “Previously, there was no back button – no tabs at all,” says Hamblin. “Now controllers can flip back and forth and never need to lose sight of anything. The content of each tab is also completely interactive. If there are too many fields, or they need to add a new one, such as the matter number, they can just drag and drop and the screen reshapes itself before the eyes.”
The latter functionality aids client responsiveness as well as internal efficiency, he explains. Client questions about the current picture of outstanding debt don’t need a new report – new sums can be totted up whenever they come in.
With so many potential impacts on the working day, Hamblin says focused training for both system testers and credit control teams was essential. Minisoft was happy to provide this as part of the package – and indeed twice flew a specialist from the US to the UK for the purpose.
“He was highly knowledgeable, as well as understanding how our firm works, and has now trained our own trainer to move it out internationally.
“We also had project team training earlier in the process. Minisoft understands our unique needs as a business very well, which was extremely useful.”
Revamped, the business-critical cash collection department should keep DLA happily growing for many years to come – even when it briefly gets the chance to sleep.
