Residential conveyancing firm Countrywide Property Lawyers has
extended its relationship with IT services firm Logica in a
five-year, £16m business process outsourcing deal which it
anticipates will pay for itself in two-and-a-half years.
Logica will operate a new document-handling centre for Countrywide.
The centre, which should be operational by February 2003, is
expected to manage and provide electronic access to more than 10
million documents a year by 2008.
Ian Goddard, Country-wide's programme manager, said the centre's
imaging and workflow system would double the efficiency of key
legal staff, dramatically improve customer service and support its
aim of increasing its market share from 1% to 10% over five years.
Business process outsourcing (BPO) is expected to become
increasingly common as the trend for IT outsourcing accelerates its
growth. Supporters of BPO deals believe it can tie outsourcing to
business - rather than technical - goals.
In August Countrywide signed a £10m, five-year IT outsourcing deal
with Logica for a customer-focused conveyancing system to be rolled
out across five regional centres in Cardiff, Brentwood, Manchester,
Northampton and Woking, encompassing customer relationship
management and workflow elements. Eight of the firm's staff
transferred to Logica in the deal.