Recession proves a win-win situation for Copitrak

In spite of, or maybe because of, the current recessionary climate, cost recovery specialist Copitrak seems to be showing no signs of running out of steam when it comes to new contract wins. Hot on the heels of its success with Winckworth Sherwood and Nabarro comes the announcement that it has now signed another top 100 firm, Hill Dickinson - further evidence seemingly that it's continuing to put clear blue water between itself and its rivals and establishing a convincing market leadership.

Copitrak in the ascendant with Hill Dickinson win

Copitrak Systems is continuing its run of recession-defying sales success with the signing of top 100 law firm Hill Dickinson. The cost recovery specialist has already delivered its Copy and Web Expense Entry modules across the firm’s Manchester, London, Liverpool, Chester and Singapore offices. Copitrak Print with Secure Print Release functionality is currently being trialed before a scheduled roll-out to over 1000 users.

Hill Dickinson took the decision to adopt a next-generation cost recovery and expense management system and saw the breadth and sophistication of Copitrak’s products as offering the best possible fit moving forward. As IT director Keith Feeny explains, the firm was keen to make the best choice based on immediate and likely future needs:

“While we had a serviceable system in place we were concerned that it would not give us the requisite scope and support in the years ahead, hence the decision to swap in Copitrak now and invest for the long-term. We can add in modules as the business demands, safe in the knowledge that we’re buying advanced, proven and flexible tools that will integrate with our PMS and build towards a comprehensive enterprise-wide cost management solution.”

Damian Jeal, Copitrak’s Operations and Business Development Director, comments: “With our customer base being traditionally very London-centric, we’re eager to use this success with Hill Dickinson, along with our other customers outside of London, as a springboard for significant growth not just in the north, but in other regions that are home to large, progressive firms”.

Helping out with a user forum

My middle name is 'Versatility' so I was happy to pitch in when Copitrak asked me if I could help out with developing a forum cum bulletin board for their users. Keen to follow up on the success of their inaugural user group meeting, Copitrak want to now push on and develop a community around the themes of cost recovery and expense management. It's an increasingly core discipline within law firms, with substantial investments in technology to support enhanced cost tracking, improved recharge rates and more proactive control of non-chargeable disbursements. But it's not always been easy for firms to share ideas and swap experiences, a natural sensitivity to discussing the inner financial workings of a practice working against an equally natural desire to know what others are up to. Without anyone giving their respective games away, it is hoped that the forum will at least serve as a useful repository for technical tips, strategic thoughts, product evaluation and robust discussions on the merits of, say, terminals vs embedded solutions.

With a little help from my friends, we had the forum up and running in a couple of days and Copitrak are now busy chivvying up people to join. The users said they wanted a community - and what the users want, they shall get!

Copitrak community kicks off with inaugural user group meeting

The tracking and charging of scanning and mobile telephony costs and a growing environmental awareness were just some of the hot topics at Copitrak’s inaugural user group meeting held earlier this month. Over fifty users registered to attend an afternoon of company and product updates, Q&A sessions and roundtables, with particular focus on the results of a user survey conducted ahead of the event.

With nearly all respondents identifying scanning as a key cost recovery issue for next year, there was plenty of discussion around both charging strategies and IT considerations. The survey revealed that while hardly any firm was charging for scanning at present, two-thirds were keen to introduce it. With concerns also being expressed at the expense of specialist scanning applications, Copitrak took the opportunity to unveil its own workflow solution. It has been designed specifically to offer core functionality such as scan to email and OCR, as well as scan direct to the DMS, but at a fraction of the cost and complexity of dedicated systems.

In addition, the results revealed a concerted movement towards the tracking of mobile telephone costs and the use of tracking to deter private calls; plus more widespread adoption of secure printing/document release, with its savings on paper and toner bringing both ‘green’ and financial benefits.

However, perhaps the single most interesting statistic of the day was that the majority of cost recovery projects achieve a Return on Investment (ROI) in just three months. This might explain the anecdotal evidence gathered over the last year that cost recovery initiatives are consistently getting the green light while other IT spend is on hold.

Copitrak will now look to build on the success of their first user event by creating a dedicated Copitrak community, complete with online forums, a knowledge base, blog, podcasts and video-based training materials.