CTS: Growing gains
With an ambitious growth strategy that’s paid off over the last three years, James Barron and Paul Rawson at Metamorph Law explain how support from IT specialists at CTS has helped the firm continue to bring newly acquired businesses up to scratch and meet the firm’s tech expectations
A great deal of transformation has occurred over the last couple of years – some of which has, of course, been spurred by the pandemic, while other changes have happened almost in spite of that huge upheaval. Metamorph Law is one legal business that has changed a great deal since Briefing’s sister publication for SME law firms, LPM, covered its growth story in 2018. Since then, the business has entered the large law arena, growing by acquiring a plethora of high street law firms across the country.
And those businesses, retaining their own identity and local presence, have performed even better than expected, explains marketing director Paul Rawson. He adds that the firm has a clear strategy to become the number-one high street legal services organisation in the UK, focusing primarily on the private client market through local brands. “We’re looking at around 10 acquisitions a year, and we’re in the middle of purchasing law network Quality Solicitors at the moment, which will give us access to another 35 networked law firms,” he says.
Seeing double
However, one of the biggest hurdles the firm has faced is bringing all these acquired firms’ technology standards up to the same level, with a joined-up approach to processes. “They each have their own historic IT platforms – and lots have been under-resourced in the past – so it’s a lot of time and effort to get them into a shared environment,” Rawson explains.
The long-standing IT goal has been to move these businesses over to a single case management system (CMS) and strategic platform, in order to build a consistent process and client experience. James Barron, group IT director at the firm, further explains that there are currently eight different instances of CMS in use across the firm, but the volume of data involved in migrating to a single system poses significant challenges itself. “We don’t have the relevant skills in-house to convert everything across to our new strategic platform on our own,” he says, adding that further acquisitions have and will continue to affect the speed and scale of the challenge.
“The technology will be an enabler when it pulls everything together, and we’ll be able to standardise processes,” Rawson continues. As well as efficiency and consistency gains, using a single CMS will offer additional benefits eventually, such as telephony and website integration and potential connections with artificial intelligence tools. Barron says: “We see our single strategic platform as an enabler going forwards, so we’re focusing on bringing everyone over to that and developing it.”
Partnering up
Metamorph has been working with tech specialists at CTS since 2016 – though the relationship stretches back to 2012. Linder Myers, later acquired by Metamorph, worked with CTS to bulk up the firm’s resources and develop the infrastructure required for long-term support. This relationship has become an ongoing one, Rawson says, and the firm initially chose CTS as it could fill the role of a long-term strategic partner aligned with the challenges facing a growing business of a similar size. “We wanted a provider that was ambitious, that would have the flexibility to grow with us and enable us to grow ourselves,” he adds.
In practical terms, that has meant CTS building a shared IT environment for all the firm’s owned businesses to run on, Barron says: “Some of the businesses we’ve acquired haven’t been in the best situation in terms of IT resources. And we have multiple desktops within the Citrix environment, which isn’t ideal. Getting CTS to work on these issues has stabilised the current environment – and we’re working on further improvements.”
CTS is also working on a plan to help the firm bring legacy hardware up to date, including the consolidation of five separate email servers into one, along with all SQL servers. It also provides the firm’s datalinks into the central website, and manages the IT service desk, Barron says, while liaising with third parties on the firm’s behalf. “I have a good working relationship with the account manager and the service desk – they’re always available as and when I need them,” he adds.
Moving target
But as Metamorph has grown through its acquisitions, the date this IT environment will be ‘completed’ is yet to be determined. “We’re trying to onboard our most recently acquired businesses into our environment as quickly as possible, but sometimes – depending on what we find after due diligence – circumstances change,” Barron says.
The hope is that as many acquired firms as possible will be migrated over to the new CTS environment, one exchange server, and to a single CMS by the end of 2022. And as there are no plan to slow the firm’s growth yet, its partner’s ability to respond to new needs, provide ongoing support, and adapt to shifting timelines will be invaluable. “CTS is very flexible – they’ll change their plans to meet what we need,” Barron adds.
But one goal remains the same – to develop and improve processes in relation to the strategic CMS and the IT environment that serves it, such that old systems aren’t developed, they are just maintained as long as needed to maintain continuity. Barron says: “As we consolidate onto a single platform, these improvements and benefits will become more prevalent, and we will be able to do more with those systems.” Bringing all these elements together should, for Metamorph at least, lead to a partnership that’s greater than the sum of its parts.
