Challenge: This 350 attorney, New York-based firm is one of the leading law firms serving the financial services sector.
Firm leadership engaged Mattern for two areas initially: outsourcing as well as output. First, the firm had been with their outsourcing service provider for multiple contracts without examining the marketplace. Due to some management changes with their current provider, leadership decided it was time to explore market options, and the firm retained Mattern to assess their operation and run a competitive request for proposal.
Process: After the completion of the RFP process, the firm chose a new provider for the labor aspect of the contract with the following recommendations implemented:
- Consolidation of mail and reprographics operations
- Reduced headcount at two of their locations
- Detailed service level agreement with scorecard penalties
- Significantly improved contract terms with non-solicitation and severance eliminated from their new agreement
- Reduced labor costs of 30.5% with a six-digit signing incentive
Results: After completing the Outsourcing RFP, Mattern turned to tackle the firm’s Output Maintenance agreement and renegotiated with the existing service provider, resulting in a 30% reduction in costs and no minimum volume requirements.
Finally, when the firm completed a renovation and consolidation of floors, Mattern ran a competitive RFP for new multi-functional devices and printers with the focus to reduce costs, improve staff to printer ratios, place one color device on each floor and eliminate duplicative and older output devices. The new configuration reduced costs another 30% and reduced printer placements from over 1,800 to 249.
Contract Compliance Gains to the Firm: Implementation, Monitoring and Maintenance
Mattern was retained to oversee the implementation and the transfer of the operation between the outgoing and the new incoming providers as well as the ongoing monitoring and maintenance of the outsourcing and output maintenance contracts.
As part of the ongoing monitoring of the service provider and their performance, specific reporting parameters are required to be provided by the service provider. This information helps Mattern monitor the headcount assigned to each service area and identify areas that are overstaffed or understaffed.
During the agreement, Mattern identified three specific instances over the first three years of the contract where the service provider could reduce headcount and maintain the agreed-upon performance standards. The client and the service provider agreed in each situation which has reduced the onsite headcount by 27% since the contract was put in place. From a contract spend perspective, in five years, the total spend has decreased by 7.3% with additional duties added and yearly salary increases provided.
