Data centre company Equinix is collaborating with UK-based global law firm HFW in a move it says is aimed at building out the firm’s digital edge in key markets including Melbourne, Dubai, London, Hong Kong and Paris.
HFW is a 136-year-old law firm that is undergoing IT transformation to prepare for the next wave of growth, and as one of the first UK-based law firms to expand internationally, HFW now generates more than 60% of its revenue outside the UK. and has seen its international revenue triple in the past seven years.
“As a result, the company needed a global interconnection platform like Platform Equinix that provides the scale and reach to keep up with the pace of change and get the firm digital ready,” Equinix said in an announcement made on Thursday.
“As a critical element of their digital transformation journey, HFW has distributed its IT to be closer to customers and employees, which has enabled the firm to increase the overall quality of experience (QoE) for these end users.
{loadposition peter}“Additionally, by leveraging Equinix for its data centre needs, HFW has been able to free up valuable internal resources and redirect those resources to the development of value-added services on top of its platform which directly impact the customer experience and the firm’s bottom line.
“The firm has experienced rapid expansion, having grown from eight offices a decade ago. For this reason, HFW was looking to standardise its approach to IT globally and required a global data centre platform with a consistent and reliable footprint to meet today’s needs but able to accommodate future business needs.”
Equinix says that, as a key piece of its digital edge strategy, HFW has deployed Equinix Performance Hubs in select geographic markets.
“Equinix Performance Hub implementations leverage WAN optimisation and peering technologies to eliminate inefficient, costly WAN routes, network choke points and variable QoE," it said.
Equinix’s direct and secure connections avoid the public Internet and its inherent congestion and risks. This is especially important given the large file sizes that legal firms like HFW transfer between offices and the associated bandwidth required on their network.”
Chris White, chief information officer, HFW said,“Business architectures built on an interconnection platform gain the ability to integrate value chains, enable ecosystem collaboration and provide transparency—all of which we have found on Platform Equinix.
“Data captured and analysed near business partners, consumers and service providers enables real-time insights that drive efficiency and reduce costs. As a result, HFW is truly a customer-centric, industry-leading digital legal services firm.”
Karl Strohmeyer, chief customer and revenue officer, Equinix said: “It is great to see a forward-thinking firm like HFW strategically thinking about the way IT can add value to the customer experience and become a true differentiator for its businesses”.
“HFW placed control points within Equinix colocation hubs to locally interconnect clouds and networks and to redefine its digital capabilities – reducing costs and latency while significantly improving speed, user experience and capacity.”