DM Nov-Dec 2023

Dm CASE STUDY: EVELYN PARTNERS
Digital documents first
In an implementation
that won the prestigious
Project of the Year
(Private Sector) trophy at
this year's DM Awards,
wealth management firm
Evelyn Partners has
moved to a 'digital first'
approach for its
document processing
Evelyn Partners is an integrated
provider of wealth management,
online investing and accountancy
services, that has been helping its
clientèle achieve their financial goals for
over 185 years. With over 170,000
clients and some £50billion-plus of
assets under management, the business
is recognised as a 'top ten' accountancy
firm. It has 27 local offices and over
3,000 staff across the UK, Ireland and
the Channel Islands.
LACK OF OVERSIGHT
Throughout the business there was no
central location where all client
documents were stored, leading to
fragmented approaches to client
engagement and service. Inconsistent
practices across teams, locations and
colleagues made it difficult to share
resources. Inefficient processes included
a lot of manual interventions and a large
amount of paper. In some areas filing
clerks were being used to deliver paper
files to colleagues, while a lot of paper
was posted to clients, leading to
additional costs and delays.
Prior to Covid, Evelyn Partners was
printing almost 20 million pieces of A4
per year. This paper was printed to either
store, send to a client or be read and
thrown away. In addition, a vast amount
of physical office space was being used
for document storage: in London alone,
the equivalent of the space for 53 desks.
Extra space was actually being rented for
storage of archived documents.
The business recognised that the
situation was unsustainable: there was a
lack of clear ownership and oversight of
all documents and processes with no
auditable document sign off process. It
was difficult to adhere to document
retention policies and a lack of standards
for control and governance. Crucially,
colleagues were spending time doing
unnecessary administration when they
could be completing fee earning work.
GAINING AN EDGE
Having realised that it was increasingly
difficult to engage digitally with their
clients, Evelyn Partners decided to take
the opportunity to use technology and
business change to gain a competitive
edge in the Professional Services
marketplace.
As a result, the Digital Document
Enablement Programme was developed
to deliver and embed efficient and
consistent document management
principles and practices - all enabled by
cutting edge technology. This meant to
ensure that Evelyn Partners had the
foundation to fundamentally move to a
"digital document first" approach
internally and for our clients.
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@DMMagAndAwards
November/December 2023
www.document-manager.com