Al Tamimi & Company Sees Smooth Implementation of Elite 3E’s Advanced Business Platform

LONDON - Leading United Arab Emirates corporate law firm, Al Tamimi & Company, has gone live with 3E, the next generation financial and practice management software system from Elite. Elite, part of Thomson Reuters, is a worldwide provider of integrated practice and financial management systems for professional services firms.

The decision to implement Elite 3E was a key component in a major upgrade of the firm’s MIS systems to support rapid regional and international expansion.

“Al Tamimi & Company is one of the largest Middle East-based law firms and we have an intimate knowledge of the local legal market,” says Kevin Hall, general manager, Al Tamimi & Company. "The implementation of 3E will allow us to leverage that unique advantage and better equip us to realize our strategic ambitions and cope with further growth.”

Hall says that over the last few years the firm has expanded rapidly, doubling its number of fee-earners, opening new offices and moving into new territories.

"We have a diverse international client base. We required a sophisticated business management solution to accommodate our growing international commercial operations, and one that would support better day-to-day financial management,” adds Hall.

Elite 3E has full multi-currency and inter-company functionality and has been designed to accommodate international financial management standards. In addition, says Hall, it tracks information and monitors transactions well, “which will prove extremely beneficial for our financial forecasting, budgeting and strategic planning activities.”

The firm’s practice development manager, Ted Glendening, says the implementation brings all departments onto a single business management platform that offers rich functionality for all staff.

“Our legacy system was used largely by our finance department. 3E changes that model by providing an integrated practice and financial management system that offers to simplify and automate a range of procedures for not only finance, but fee-earners, secretaries and administration staff alike. We are looking to unify the firm’s day-to-day work practices around the functionality provided by the system.”

Al Tamimi & Company is currently rolling out in-depth training to all users. In the near future it plans to hire additional expertise to capitalize on the financial capabilities of the system and to augment its technical team to further fine-tune the system’s integration.

Designing, installing and managing the implementation has been achieved by a small in-house group at the firm, together with the services team from Elite,” says Glendening.

Says Hall: “The firm’s strategy will see a continuing international expansion and the implementation of 3E is fundamental to support that strategy.”

Kim Massana, senior vice president, Strategic Marketing & International, says the go-live at Al Tamimi is a significant victory for the firm. “Al Tamimi & Company was an early adopter of 3E technology. It saw the potential of the product to solve the complexities of conducting business on a global scale,” Massana said. “The implementation coincided with growth in the sophistication of the firm’s needs and Al Tamimi has managed to deal with the increased complexity, while at the same time understand and define its requirements from the system.”