With offices in Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville, and Washington, D.C., Bass, Berry & Sims is a nationally prominent law firm with more than two hundred attorneys providing superior client service and unsurpassed legal representation for more than forty publicly traded and Fortune 500 companies.
OVERVIEW
RJ Young and Bass, Berry & Sims have worked together for more than twenty-five years. As the law firm has grown, RJ Young has been there to meet the firm's changing technological needs, from standard copying in the beginning to complete Managed Print Services including equipment, service, and supplies.
THE PROBLEM
The offices of Bass, Berry & Sims were using outdated technology that was not reliable and not cohesive. Fax servers could not fully support older fax machines. Interoffice routing was cumbersome, requiring printed barcode sheets to direct the system where to send documents, wasting resources and employee time. With two different scanning solutions, a lack of consistency posed problems for all employees. In addition, some devices were being overused while others were being underutilized.
In hopes of reducing overhead, Bass, Berry & Sims had also decided to purchase and maintain their own devices. Managing a fleet of several hundred machines became more problematic than cost-saving. “What tended to happen was we would wait for a printer to break or wait for so many complaints to happen before it was replaced,” said Craig Bingham, CIO of Bass, Berry & Sims. “That wasn’t the kind of service we wanted to provide for our users.”
THE CHALLENGE
Providing consistent service and expert advice is of the utmost importance to the attorneys of Bass, Berry & Simes. The firm's outdated technology and reactive print services approach were not working well, taxing the resources of the IT department and frustrating the users.
“Someone would call and say, ‘I can’t print, come and take care of it.’ We couldn’t foresee the number of printer problems or how many devices we would need to replace,” said Bingham. “We had to dedicate half a tech’s role to managing these problems.” Users also had to search through stacks of paper for their copies and scans and every office had its own device configuration. Bass, Berry & Sims needed a solution that was more cost-effective and maximized their previous investments.
THE SOLUTION
First, RJ Young updated the firm's outdated technology to enhance performance and allow systems to integrate. A document management system was proposed that allowed Bass, Berry & Sims to leverage their existing investment in copying, printing, and scanning into a unified platform. Bass, Berry & Simes now employs an integrated technology custom click program for scans, faxes, and copies that incorporates equipment, service, and volumes on one bill.
Touchscreen capability and hardware have replaced the outdated barcode system. By typing an identification code, users can send scans to predefined locations, allowing for scan to emails, scans to folders, and automatic integration into their existing archiving program. Regularly scheduled meetings with RJ Young are held to review device usage and make adjustments to be certain that workload is even across multiple devices. If a printer is being overused, it is switched out with another device to spread usage more evenly.
THE RESULTS
With RJ Young’s Managed Print Services, Bass, Berry & Sims has consolidated expenses into one monthly bill. Updated software monitors devices and tracks usage for improved billing accuracy to recover costs from their clients. Integration of previous tools and devices with
new technology has provided consistency, cost savings, and efficiency.
The unified technology platform has allowed Bass, Berry & Sims to streamline all its copying, scanning, and printing, reducing the amount of training and trouble. Without the demands of managing the fleet of devices, the firm's IT team is project-oriented again and not printer-focused. They can now concentrate on computers, phones, and other technology solutions that keep the firm running smoothly.
At RJ Young, we take pride in the lasting, one-on-one relationships fostered with our customers. Much like the approach of our longtime partners at Bass, Berry & Sims, we strive to understand the business of our customers so we can deliver personalized solutions and superior service.
Craig Bingham says it best. “First and foremost, we don’t buy copiers, we buy service. At the end of the day, I can buy a copier from anyone. They all basically work the same. What we have to have is service. When our copiers don’t work, it prevents us from serving our clients. With RJ Young, we have the proactive and responsive service which allows us to be more consistent and more efficient."