Case Study: Borden Ladner Gervais (BLG) LLP
How one of Canada's largest national law firms dramatically improved operations and increased client satisfaction with Ricoh's outsourced administrative services.
About the customer
Borden Ladner Gervais LLP (BLG) is one of Canada's largest national law firms, providing a broad range of legal solutions to their clients. Their diverse team of over 700 lawyers, intellectual property agents and other professionals across offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal boasts some of the most experienced and knowledgeable legal minds in Canada. They work tirelessly to understand and meet the needs of their clients nationwide.
In today's crowded legal market, law firms must identify and strengthen what makes them unique to remain competitive. For BLG, that competitive edge is their commitment to providing exceptional legal services and approaching each client with dedication and unparalleled knowledge and skills.
“Working with Ricoh has been a success. Everything we set out to do, we achieved with Ricoh. Our client satisfaction is much greater, and I am completely convinced that the operations we have now are seamless."
Julian Cranwell
Chief Administrative Officer
BLG
Challenge
Opaque and time-consuming operations
Inability to track or report on quality of print and copy jobs
Underutilized staff working on repetitive, administrative tasks
Inefficiencies taking focus away from core business of practicing law
When Julian Cranwell, Chief Administrative Officer at BLG, examined the firm's overall operations, he discovered that office administrative services had become so opaque and time consuming for BLG employees that the resulting inefficiencies were taking critical focus away from the firm's core business of practicing law.
“It is my thinking that, wherever possible, law firms should concentrate on the business of the law, with strong administrative services supporting it," explains Cranwell. “I looked at all of our operations and I couldn't determine how good or bad the quality of our performance was. For example, we had zero percent line-of-sight into how many print and copy jobs were being processed and couldn't determine the accuracy of those jobs. We also had no idea whether we were over- or understaffed."
With talented staff members being underutilized by working on repetitive administrative tasks, it quickly became apparent to Julian that BLG's operations needed an update.
Solution
“We have a philosophy of using innovation to improve how we service our clients," says Cranwell. “As a potential partner, it was clear that Ricoh shares this philosophy."
Outsourced staffing services for administrative and mailroom tasks
Document digitization services including HR files
Upgraded reporting technology solution to track and measure operational efficiency
BLG identified mailroom and print and copy services in their Toronto office as the most critical operational areas to improve and issued a Request for Proposal (RFP). Ricoh's winning bid made an impression by highlighting experience in the legal marketplace, a solid understanding of market trends, and detailing a comprehensive, national coverage solution that would free BLG staff to refocus on client services.
“We have a philosophy of using innovation to improve how we service our clients," says Cranwell. “As a potential partner, it was clear that Ricoh shares this philosophy."
Aligned with BLG's goals, challenges and philosophy, Ricoh established a full complement of 22 full-time employees at BLG's Toronto office to assume responsibility for the firm's administrative work, including most back office and mailroom tasks.
In addition, Ricoh began managing BLG's national digitization initiative, which includes everything from HR files to litigation documents. During the first phase Ricoh produced over 1 million impressions at the Toronto office, and continues to work with BLG's National Director of Records to manage the digitization project for BLG offices across the country.
Following the success in the Toronto office, Ricoh and BLG have expanded their partnership to include the Vancouver and Calgary operations with over 60 full-time Ricoh staff and additional services.
“In Toronto, even our reception services and switchboard operations are managed and delivered by Ricoh," confirms Cranwell. “A Ricoh on-site employee acts as our Boardroom Coordinator, handling essential components of meetings and client care such as catering and AV. We also have a number of team-mates from Ricoh assisting with records reduction and copy centre operations across the country. This is a big factor in making our partnership work."
New technology solutions, such as handheld devices that track courier deliveries and a secure, data-rich tracking environment, have also been deployed.
Results
99 percent accuracy in all operations
99 percent turnaround times, meeting SLA commitments
Expanded roles handled by Ricoh staff that allow in-house legal team to focus on client care
Higher client satisfaction reported due to professional Ricoh administrative staff
Increased capacity to better service existing and new clients
BLG operations are now running more efficiently than ever and the BLG Management team has a comprehensive understanding of all costs and tasks involved. Staff can focus on face-time and performance, ensuring better results for their clients.
“We have an entirely new way of doing things so it's difficult to put a specific number to cost savings," says Cranwell. “Ricoh is enabling us to do – and to offer our clients – so much more than before. We have new roles, like the Client Floor Coordinator who ensures we make the best use of our recently expanded client space, and the Concierge who delivers meals and other services to our in-house professionals. And I, personally, am able to focus more on the client-facing side of the operations."
With comprehensive tracking now available on all print and copy jobs, BLG is seeing an employee commitment to cost recovery and management has achieved the line-of-sight they were previously missing. “We can now see that we are typically running at about 99 percent accuracy in all operations – that means getting jobs done right the first time, error free," explains Cranwell. “From my experience we weren't anywhere near that prior to working with Ricoh. We are also 99 percent in turnaround time, which means we're meeting our SLA commitments."
With Ricoh handling all administrative staffing, BLG no longer faces personnel management challenges, such as recruitment, hiring, planned or unplanned leave, training and development. The changes have also positively impacted the customer experience at Borden Ladner Gervais. BLG clients have reported an increased level of satisfaction with the immaculately professional appearance, attitude and services rendered by the front-line administrative support team from the receptionists and concierges to the coordinators and mailroom staff.
“We're now able to take on work that we wouldn't have been able to handle using our own internal capacity," says Cranwell. “For example, we had a court case last year that required documents to be printed by media between two locations. It was an entire truck full of material. By leveraging the Ricoh Business Information Services Centre [Ricoh's off-site overflow facility in downtown Toronto], we saved ourselves the time in executing that entire job, thereby increasing our capacity to service more clients better."
“Working with Ricoh has been a great experience. Everything we set out to do, we achieved with Ricoh. Our client satisfaction is much greater, and I am completely convinced that the operations we have now are seamless."