Make Progress with Confidence

Project Management & Governance

Many firms struggle to get projects delivered, often because they have too many projects on the go at once. It is hard to distinguish between competing priorities because everything seems urgent. And relying on vendors can be challenging, as they focus on their own objectives rather than yours.

It is difficult to rely entirely on an internal resource who may be unfamiliar with the kind of major change you are undertaking, and in any case are fully occupied with their day-jobs.

We offer you an alternative to either stressing internal resource, or relying on an impartial vendor. Our experienced team have almost certainly delivered projects like the ones you are considering, and this experience, external perspective, and credible leadership will increase your chances of project success.

Before you start

Before you start your project or programme of projects, our experience will help you:

• Implement a system of governance so that projects are monitored and managed
• Score and assess projects so that you can prioritise them and choose which to undertake and when, to avoid project overload
• Select the right technology, vendor and resources to ensure the best chances of a project succeeding

During a project

Our experience becomes your experience, ensuring that you have a credible position when it comes to managing internal resource and external suppliers during project delivery.

• We will manage a project for you with an independent standpoint, ensuring all parties aim on the agreed deliverable
• We are credible and ensure that decision-making and leadership comes from a position of strength, so that your wishes and outcomes always come first
• We are dedicated to the task and not distracted by any “day-job” workload

After a project

Once a project has been delivered we continue to work with you.

• Review adoption and help ensure maximum uptake
• Run through lessons learned and determine future phases and iterations
• Rework remaining projects or programme of works to ensure maximum value in these in light of the completed project

"JHA have worked with Francis Clark helping us to determine and follow the best technology strategy for the firm. They are knowledgeable and forthright, and bring an external view at Board level that we value."

Andrew Richards / PKF Francis Clark

"Our projects are varied and sometimes complex, with many operational and technical considerations. We consider the insight we get from JHA to be very useful when considering the options at our disposal. They have wide experience and have demonstrated the ability to work with our technical, administrative and production teams."

Julie Berry / COO at Saffery

"We have ambitious growth targets and see technology as key to achieving these whilst still maintaining our very high standards of client engagement. To help us meet these goals, we have worked with JHA for many years and found their insight invaluable in supporting our internal teams"

Andrew Sandiford / Managing Partner at Bishop Fleming

"As a large firm we are able to rely in-house for most of our technology resources. However, we appreciate some outside counsel, to open our horizons and to act as a reference point for our decisions. The team at JHA have the experience and independence we value and provide this input for the firm"

Chris Madden / Head of IT at Kreston Reeves

"Through the years JHA has given us good strategic and operational input, helping us procure and utilise a range of good suppliers to good effect"

Alex Peal / Managing Partner at James Cowper Kreston

"As an ambitious and highly successful firm, we know the value of expert advice – we are, after all, in the advice business ourselves. JHA have helped us plan and implement change, especially with their team of experts covering different areas of knowledge, available as and when we’ve needed them"

Adam Cramer / CEO at Wilson Wright

"As a mid-sized firm we had always managed our IT internally. As we’ve grown, we have needed to access more knowledge and advice, but independence was of the utmost importance to us. JHA have provided the ideal service for us"

Peter Winter / Managing Partner at Carter Backer Winter LLP

"By working with JHA, we are confident that we’ve made good strategic decisions that have been impactful on the efficiency and growth of the firm into a dominant force in our region. We have found the support and guidance from Jeremy and his team to be invaluable. Challenging our thinking in the area of technology to ensure that what we are doing is of real commercial benefit to our business."

Paul Dickson / Managing Partner at Armstrong Watson

"We wanted to provide insight and expertise to our member firms from a partner that knew how to engage as advisors, not salespeople. JHA has proven to be exactly who we needed."

Andrew Leck / CEO, MSI Global

"As a start-up, we felt we needed a range of experts available to guide us through the challenges we knew we would face. Having worked with JHA before, they were the natural choice and have contributed to our success"

Andrew Watson / Managing Director at Petrolprices.com

"Working with you has been valuable to the firm and me. We have worked through some critical periods and your insights and experience have provided us a plan for the immediate needs and a way forward."

Margot Sunter / Chief Innovation Officer & Chief Operating Officer GGFL LLP

System Selection & Implementation

From time to time firms or their clients will undertake the replacement of a major system. This can be a daunting task, as it places great demands on the IT team and users, and also often has impacts far beyond the system being replaced, especially in terms of data and process change.

Major systems are usually expensive and making the wrong choice of system or supplier can lead to an unsuccessful or suboptimal result. The cost and resource commitment expended means that this will have to be endured for years, and so the stakes of “getting it right” are considerable.

We have a great deal of experience in determining what a new system must deliver, selecting the right solution and vendor, procuring software and services, and setting out a realistic path for the project to migrate to the new environment.

Our areas of expertise include…

Data

You have already assembled years, and perhaps decades of data. It is time to unlock the value it holds and apply it your decision making, moving from subjective evaluations to objective truths.

We will help you identify and untangle your data, improve your data processing so that quality continually improves. You will have convenient and confident access to your data, reducing pick-up and put-down of work, the enemy of efficiency.

And we will show you how to bring your data to life, with pro-active interventions through both traditional and modern AI mechanisms.

Practice management, financials & ERP

At the heart of a firm is its practice management system (PMS). Many of these systems are really quite ancient, with technology often twenty or more years old. Changing PMS is not for the feint-hearted however. Over the years, most PMS evolve to cater for many nuanced operations within a firm, detailed reporting requirements, and countless integrations.

We can help you really understand what your PMS needs to do and help you review the market (both within your sector and outside of it, and to include both PMS and ERP systems). We also look at data and processes, and formulate better data architectures and improved processes. We help you migrate data and implement process change.

Integration & Automation

Businesses need to release valuable human capital to provide advice, guidance and insight, not re-enter and churn data.

We will help you identify current inefficiencies in processing, and address these through appropriate technologies in the integration and automation arena.

The net result will be fewer processing errors, streamlined operations, and happier staff (who don’t have to undertake drudge work) and happier clients (who don’t feel that their fees are paying for inefficient working practices).

Portals

Portals are the digital interface for your firm to your clients. A well-executed portal not only impresses clients with your modernity and efficiency, but also lowers your cost of delivery particularly for mundane tasks.

A portal allows for secure exchange of information, seamless collaborative workflows, and a closely bound client relationship.

We understand the intricacies of assembling portals, the complexities of gathering and disseminating data across multiple systems, and ensuring appropriate levels of security and data privacy in operation.

Client relationship management

Client Relationship Management (CRM) is probably the least well-understood software in professional firms. Its very flexibility and agility can make it very hard to specify, and its overlaps with other systems – often quite old, legacy systems – can make integration and implementation a particular challenge.

We have extensive experience with most leading CRM systems, both general market and industry specific, allowing us to advise you on their selection, implementation and, most importantly, their adoption.

CRM can be the most powerful tool you ever deploy to support business development and pro-active client engagement. But choosing and using it well is a subtle art, and CRM has perhaps the biggest gap between what vendors want to supply, and the precise needs of your firm. It is a gap we can fill, increasing the chances of a successful deployment.

Document management

Document Management Systems (DMS) have been in use at most firms for many years, and most of our clients are now on their second or third iteration of these systems.

However, in recent years the market has progressed considerably, particularly with the advent of cloud-based systems. These are also evolving from being back-office repositories into more integrated and client-facing systems, often providing portal and e-signing facilities alongside traditional storage functions.

We have extensive experience of choosing a new DMS, migrating what can be very substantial amounts of data, and defining and helping with the adoption of new processes to make the most of a next-generation DMS in your firm.

Examples of our Projects Work

Building a Long-Term Data and Systems Framework

Working with a large firm to align their data and system plans with their commercial goals, and develop this into a long-term architecture

How can you decide which projects to do, and when?

Everyone wants to achieve everything, but not everything can be done at once. So how do you choose how to prioritise one project over another?

Helping users make the most of their IT

We assisted a medium size firm re-engage their users with IT, improving return-on-investment and user satisfaction