Mimecast A Success Story For Thynne & Macartney  

Background

Thynne & Macartney is a full service law firm based in Brisbane and serving clients across Queensland.  In common with law firms all over the world, it relies heavily on email as a primary communication tool, for both office-based and mobile workers.

Thynne & Macartney chose Mimecast Unified Email Management to replace various point solutions on its network thereby consolidating email security, archiving, continuity, mobile access and more.  The result has been a safe, cost effective, cloud-based email solution that improves efficiency, mobility and client service – even when the worst happens.  

Mimecast now provides the firm’s 110 email users with a reliable service which is business critical. “Email is tremendously important to the organisation.  Much of our revenue is derived from billable time so email downtime goes beyond inconvenience and frustration,” said Ken Apps, IT Manager. “It can have a direct affect on our revenues and our reputation.”

Situation

When Ken joined the firm in late 2009, Thynne & Macartney’s email system was built from disparate point solutions spanning anti-virus, security, email gateway, spam protection and archiving. It was complex, inefficient and costly. 

Archiving, in particular, was a real issue. “It would take IT hours or even days to retrieve archived emails and the possibility that the system would fail to archive some emails created a compliance risk.”

After assessing the situation, Ken identified email archiving as a clear priority for investment.  However, since many of the point solutions and services were due for renewal or replacement, and no email continuity service was in place, Ken saw an opportunity to affect a more comprehensive overhaul.

Ken said: “The ultimate goal was to replace all our point solutions with a single platform capable of making our email system more reliable, more productive and simpler to manage.”

Solution

Thynne & Macartney’s IT services provider Docscorp introduced Ken to Mimecast Unified Email Management (UEM).

Ken said, “I was impressed. Mimecast offered a single solution to all our email management challenges and, crucially, a simpler, more productive experience for both office and mobile workers”.

However, this would be Thynne & Macartney’s first taste of the cloud model, so Ken was naturally cautious.  “In the end, Mimecast’s SLAs and data ingestion service made up my mind.  It was clear this was a service we could rely on and which gave us a low risk way to move data from multiple silos into a single, consolidated repository in the cloud.” 

Benefits

Thynne & Macartney started the move to Mimecast UEM in November 2010, but the service’s ease of use and email continuity capabilities were to be tested earlier than expected.

Ken said, “By January 2011 we had switched all our outgoing external email and our Exchange data journaling over to Mimecast.  It was at this point that Brisbane was hit by serious flooding.”

With Thynne & Macartney’s office building about to lose power, Ken was forced to complete the migration to Mimecast from home. “Setting Mimecast up remotely was pretty intuitive and I was able to get it up and running very quickly. 

“Within a day of the IT systems being powered down, staff were able to send and receive emails, and access anything they’d sent or received in the previous 58 days. Having Mimecast allowed staff to keep in touch with clients for the next five days.”

As a result, Ken now knows that Thynne & Macartney has a highly effective email continuity solution in place.  “In a way the floods justified our decision to go with Mimecast.  Now we have the full migration done, it is even more impressive.  During downtime, staff retain email access without having to do anything.”

Accessible Archiving

Ken has also realised his primary ambition of putting in place an accessible, yet compliant email archiving solution.  He said, “With the Mimecast solution, we have complete assurance that we archive everything – it has more integrity." 

“The solution also enables better, more responsive client service, because users can carry out archive searches themselves very quickly and easily. Emails can be retrieved in a matter of minutes rather than days.” 

Seamless Mobility

Mimecast Mobile Access, meanwhile, has strengthened Thynne & Macartney’s mobility strategy, giving all staff with firm-owned iPhones and iPads seamless access to email services via native app interfaces.

Ken explained, “Mobility with Mimecast isn’t just about the inbox.  Our staff can access their entire email account, carry out archive searches and more, all from the Mimecast apps.”

Enhances User Experience

Tight integration with Microsoft Outlook, via Mimecast Services for Outlook (MSO), has enabled a significantly enhanced user experience.  For instance, MSO’s strip and link attachment function has solved a long-standing problem.

“Previously, probably three or four times a week, we’d have users asking us to help reduce an attachment size so they could get it to a client.  Now we can send even 50Mb files to all our clients very easily, without worrying about mailbox size limits.”

Simpler, More Cost Efficient

Mimecast UEM has also enabled Ken to deliver significant time and cost efficiencies. “We’ve saved money on hardware and service contracts for all those point solutions and we’ve saved a big chunk of time because the solution requires a lot less maintenance.

“Mimecast has proven incredibly cost effective.  We have enhanced our email systems in every way, from reliability and disaster recovery to the user experience, mobility and productivity, and all that has been covered by the budget we set aside solely for a new email archiving solution.”