Conveyancer improves scalability
Countrywide Property Lawyers installs case management system
Countrywide Property Lawyers (CPL) has installed case management and business process automation technology to replace systems installed under a now defunct outsourcing contract.
The residential conveyancing firm had been using bespoke software as part of a multimillion-pound strategic outsourcing deal with LogicaCMG.
It has introduced Visualfiles software built on Progress Software’s OpenEdge platform to replace a Microsoft SQL Server system that failed to deliver the required levels of scalability, capacity and customer service.
‘The speed of response and the instability of the system meant our ability to progress and cope with the volumes was constricted, and we were in danger of alienating our users,’ said Terry Marris, chairman of CPL.
Countrywide has used Visualfiles in the past. It installed the SolCase v5 system in 1999, but two years of rapid growth prompted the company to contract LogicaCMG to develop a bespoke application – Fusion – and provide an outsourced hardware and systems infrastructure.
Fusion went live in 2003, but by 2005 the original SolCase v5 application was still supporting 70 per cent of the business and Fusion was handling fewer than 3,000 cases and just 200 of 500 users. CPL dropped the system in 2005 and implemented Visualfiles, an upgrade of SolCase, which went live with all new business this spring.
‘With Fusion, we had taken a big bang approach. We bet the business and lost. This time we have taken a phased approach,’ said Marris.
LogicaCMG told Computing it is prohibited from commenting.
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