Anthony Harper Switches from Tapes to WinScribe Digital Dictation

Anthony Harper is one of New Zealand’s leading practices in corporate, banking and commercial law. Its expertise and dedication providing clients with premier legal services enables it to secure international recognition from its Christchurch location.

With 60 staff including 32 authors and 13 full and part time transcription staff, on average, over 55 dictations are carried out daily.

The Challenge

The Anthony Harper partnership takes particular pride in its ability to deliver on time and cost effective legal services. “We embrace change and are committed to constant improvement to ensure our clients are provided with the highest standards in legal counsel and professional support,” says Stuart Anderson, General Manager.

In response to a changing information environment and the needs of its clients, it was realised that a switch from a tape-based analog system to digital dictation technology could further improve its high standards of service delivery.

Anthony Harper is also progressive and innovative with a spirited passion for teamwork. A digital dictation and workflow management solution could therefore further encourage and promote team-working and work-sharing.

The Solution – WinScribe

Other digital dictation solutions were considered but the decision was made to go with WinScribe. There were three key drivers for the decision. Firstly, Anthony Harper required a solution which would help improve client service. By being easy to use and flexible, WinScribe proved that it would be able to assist in improving document turnaround time. “From a client perspective we have to be able to deliver on time cost effective legal services and I think WinScribe gives us the flexibility to do that. Secondly the firm wanted to move with the times and move from analog to digital dictation.

WinScribe’s open standards architecture made this easy. The authors were mainly working with tapes and Olympus DS-4000 Digital Voice Recorders.A major benefit for Anthony Harper was being able to integrate existing hardware with WinScribe. The other digital dictation solutions did not offer the same possibilities for hardware integration. The lawyers are also now using Philips Speechmikes for PC dictation and plan to use telephony and PDA’s for remote working.

The ability to work remotely from any PC or Touchtone Telephone was also one of the key drivers for choosing WinScribe. Telephone dictation and WinScribe’s web enabled capability allowing for anywhere, anytime dictation and transcription is an attractive flexible working option for employees working away from the office.The installation of WinScribe was carried out by Sound Business Systems, the Auckland based voice and data solution provider. “Installation was very easy and straightforward, initial training needs were light as it’s a very easy system to learn anyway and the after support has been very good,” says Stuart Anderson.

The Results

Improved workflow and work sharing
WinScribe has improved information flow around the office by delivering dictations to more than one person’s desktop. In addition to using tapes, lawyers were previously dictating into Digital Voice Recorders and then emailing their voice files to an individual secretary. Now, with WinScribe and improved visibility of the workflow, it is possible to pick the jobs up from the queue and smooth out peaks and troughs.

Stuart Anderson explains, “Anthony Harper people share a sense of team and common values. However with the old systems, the support crew couldn’t share jobs easily with other users as it was not always obvious who was busy. WinScribe is much more transparent and the fact that we can now prioritise work and see what’s in the pipeline is working really well.”

Employee satisfaction
Anthony Harper has also found that internal acceptance has been much easier and more positive than anticipated. The feedback from the support staff has been as positive as that from the lawyers. There was a little bit of hesitation among some of them, which was driven by the basis that they like to work in small groups or one-on–one rather than the old pool methodology.

This did not however turn out to be an issue. Secretaries in the office explain: “The improved information flow around the office is even better and as a result of WinScribe our team dynamics could not be better. WinScribe provides more visibility into work backlog and enables us to clear jobs even faster. It’s great!”

Improved productivity and quality of service
Visibility and work sharing has also contributed to improved quality of service delivery, since clients are getting results quicker. “We pride ourselves on being able to deliver timely and cost effective legal services. WinScribe certainly gives us greater working flexibility and further improves our ability to deliver solutions to clients” says Stuart Anderson, General Manager.

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About WinScribe

WinScribe is a world leading provider of digital dictation software supporting business requirements for digital dictation, transcription, voice recognition, and workflow management.

Founded in 1995, WinScribe has offices in the USA, UK, New Zealand and Switzerland, with more than 100 sales partners in over 25 countries supporting more than 300,000 users worldwide.

The WinScribe solution is built on Microsoft architecture, to ensure easy integration and maintenance. WinScribe also supports a wide range of manufacturer-independent dictation devices and is scaleable from small, single office locations up to large multinational corporations. WinScribe is fully customizable to meet the needs of a number of significant vertical markets including Legal, Law Enforcement, Healthcare, Transcription, Insurance and Government sectors.

About Sound Business Systems

Sound Business Systems Ltd. was formed by the merger of Dictation Systems Ltd and Sound Business Systems in February 2004. With over 45 years experience in the field the organization specializes in an extensive range of voice and data solutions.