The Legal Case for Video Conferencing
Freeth Cartwright
One of the UK’s leading national law firms, Freeth Cartwright, has been enjoying the benefits of video conferencing for the past three years. “At first,” says Paul Taylor, “we adopted it to improve communications between the teams of people at our offices. Now, in the current economic climate, we are actively encouraging the use of the system, for both internal and external meetings, to help keep costs to a minimum and to reduce our carbon footprint”
Improving Productivity
With offices in Nottingham, Derby, Leicester, Birmingham and Manchester, excellent communication is essential. Telephone conferencing to five different offices, normally with three or four people round a conference phone, meant that meetings weren’t as productive as they could be. This kind of conference didn’t allow presentations or training to take place which made video conferencing the ideal choice. Video conferencing specialist, Questmark Limited, were asked to recommend and install a high-definition system using Freeth Cartwright’s private data network, which provides the high level of security that the firm demands.
Proving the Benefits
The historical usage has shown that video conferencing was the correct choice with meetings lasting on average an hour and some extending up to four hours. Usage is heavy with five or six meetings each week and at least three offices participating (although it is not unusual for all five locations to be involved). In some, PowerPoint presentations are given to aid training whilst others connect to relevant websites to access legal information and case law.
At present most meetings have been internal, however an increase in external client calls has been seen with some as far away as Ireland and Switzerland. Freeth Cartwright may also consider units for offices in London and Stoke-On-Trent.
User reaction is positive with regular comments on the quality and sharpness of picture and sound.
“we adopted it to improve communications
keep costs to a minimum
and to reduce our carbon footprint”
Working with Questmark
Knowledge and support from Questmark has proven that with high quality, well implemented video, users can have confidence to book meetings and use them to their full advantage.
“The high standard of installation and training from Questmark means that very few problems have occurred with the units,” says Paul Taylor, “This can be supported by the fact that we haven’t had a major fault in the two years that I have been running the systems. Also any support query is handled quickly and efficiently, with responses always well within SLA timeframes”.
Sam McMaster, Managing Director of Questmark comments; “the usage profile that has grown within Freeth Cartwright is many times higher than the industry average for this application reflecting a strong desire to achieve the benefits videoconferencing can offer, the development of great user skills and confidence that the application is “business class” both in terms of performance and reliability. This is the recipe for success with videoconferencing and has provided an excellent return on investment for Freeth Cartwright. These are the things a buyer should look for with this application; the business benefits are far more important than the technology and this approach delivers the successes shown within Freeth Cartwright.”