Fractional IT Director Case Study for Barcan+Kirby

Barcan+Kirby asked 3Kites Consulting to resolve their issues with its IT supplier management and strategic planning.

Assessing the firm’s requirements

Barcan+Kirby (B+K), a law firm with 180 staff and 5 offices in and around Bristol, has a reputation for providing high quality, common-sense advice in a range of legal services for individuals and businesses.

The firm was looking to improve the service it was receiving from existing IT suppliers, to stabilise an IT environment that was experiencing regular issues, to complete a number of existing long-running projects and to improve relationships between the firm and its suppliers. 3Kites was asked to both assist the firm with this endeavour and look at its IT strategy for the short to medium term.

Formulating a clear strategy after an initial IT review to gain an understanding of issues the firm faced alongside requirements for the next three to five years, 3Kites created a detailed two-year IT plan and strategy to deliver agreed improvements and changes. B+K asked 3Kites to deliver the IT plan, working alongside the firm’s Managing Partner, taking ownership of the proposed projects and managing the relevant IT suppliers.

After the initial focus of stabilising the IT environment to reduce downtime and improve performance issues, attention turned to a programme of improvements. This entailed moving the IT environment, from an ageing private data centre into Azure, upgrading network lines, ensuring the correct IT suppliers were in place and achieving Cyber Essentials+.

“Jon Howells from 3Kites was absolutely invaluable in helping us to achieve the aims we had as a firm. He quickly understood what we wanted and where our pain points were. He spent time diligently holding people’s feet to the fire and managed to translate complex IT speak into fluent human. With his help we made a very successful move into Azure and to a new Managed Service Provider. Without his help we would be nowhere near as well set up as we are now. Thanks Jon!”

Bill Willcocks, Managing Partner at Barcan+Kirby

Project completion and beyond

The programme of work was delivered with the input from 3Kites tailored to each stage of the project to ensure that costs were managed for B+K. With the firm confident in the service its IT suppliers are now delivering, 3Kites involvement has evolved into ad-hoc strategic support, keeping the firm aware of changes within the legal IT landscape and providing independent advice on any key projects and software solutions B+K is looking to undertake.

If you have any questions about how 3Kites can assist your firm, then please contact Laura.Howells@3Kites.com