Business & professional services

IT is crucial to running a professional service business and satisfying its clients.

Professional services businesses have a lot of moving parts. Often there are tight deadlines and complex requirements; there can be multiple stakeholders and objectives. That’s why it’s so important these types of businesses have a flexible, scalable IT function, and an IT leader who understands both business and technology.

What makes a professional service business successful? Great talent, great clients, and the right technology. Explore how our IT leaders have helped these professional services businesses thrive.

Moss UK technology integration

`Freeman Clarke's strategic approach and deep expertise were instrumental in ensuring a seamless technology integration during our acquisition, setting us up for continued success.' Read more

Client story

Hawkins\Brown

‘We realised we needed expert help to advise us about technology, take ownership on behalf of the Board, and help us with the selection of products, services and suppliers' Read more

Client story

Exigent Group

'Steve's enthusiastic and collaborative approach to innovation, coupled with his commitment to excellence, has had a positive impact on the technologies supporting our clients.' Read more

Client story

New York Cruise Lines

‘Hiring Freeman Clarke was a smart move. They knew what we needed and got us the right person on the first try' Read more

Client story

Validant

‘The support we received from Freeman Clarke helped expedite and elevate our IT integration transformation project' Read more

Client story

YFM Equity Partners

'Freeman Clarke have implemented substantial improvements in YFM’s IT infrastructure, cyber resilience and systems controls' Read more

Client story

Health Economics and Outcomes Research Ltd (HEOR)

'Freeman Clarke's Principal has been an invaluable partner and critical friend at a time of significant growth and investment for our business' Read more

Client story

Word360

'Freeman Clarke has not only led the specification of requirements, identified companies to help design the UX and UI, but also helped build the team, and develop the overall business strategy for the company' Read more

Client story

Hydrock

'Freeman Clarke made IT a strategic enabler, aligned with our business strategy. Hydrock's systems now provide much greater support for staff, reducing wasted time, costs, and problems' Read more

Client story

PPS Equipment

'Freeman Clarke helped design and develop PPS’s own system used daily by hundreds of companies across the sector. There is a strong vision for further development' Read more

Client story

Exigent

'Freeman Clarke provided us with the perfect individual to be our CIO. He quickly connected with Exigent’s high-energy culture and helped to get colleagues excited about the possibilities of change' Read more

Client story

Traffic Group Signals

'Freeman Clarke delivered what we believed was a mammoth task within our timescales, with no drama. Fantastic' Read more

Client story

L W Cole

'A Freeman Clarke IT leader moved multiple services to the cloud, established the requirements for a new ERP system, and supported the transition to a more efficient and functional system, including the migration of current data' Read more

Client story

At Your Service (AYS)

'AYS now has integrated IT systems that will enable growth and the flexibility to adapt to our sector's continuous change and disruption' Read more

Client story

Career Connections

‘Freeman Clarke has been our trusted advisor in all IT-related matters. The team spent time understanding the business and designing an IT strategy. They then supported us in executing this strategy' Read more

Client story

SWIFTCLEAN

'We needed an independent expert to get to know us, understand us, and challenge our thinking through digital innovation' Read more

Client story

Amberjack

'It was vitally important that our IT strategy and delivery were led by an expert who understood our values' Read more

Client story

Bonhill Group plc

'We needed best-in-class technology leadership in the US and the UK, and so we contacted Freeman Clarke' Read more

Client story

BRC

'Freeman Clarke provided a first-class, committed IT leader on a long-term but flexible basis' Read more

Client story

Sircle

‘We are very impressed with Mike and the support he has given to us. His work and detail are proving invaluable to help Sircle deliver their Digital Strategy.’

Anthony Walker, Director

bridgethorne

Bridgethorne

‘As a niche consultancy we’re very dependent on IT – but we simply don’t need and don’t want a full-time IT Director. Freeman Clarke solve this problem. They manage our cost and service issues with our suppliers, and have given us a simple IT strategy that connects our IT investment to our business aims. We have an enduring relationship that’s delivered significant value to us whilst keeping our costs under control. They take our business as seriously as we do.’

John Nevens, Owner/Founder

The FD Centre

‘The FD Centre has expanded rapidly in recent years and plans to continue this growth in the future. A scalable CRM system and sales and marketing platform is at the heart of this vision, but we had struggled to get this project underway for many months. Freeman Clarke helped us understand our objectives, clarify options, and turn this into a plan of action. Their Principal directed the project and led us through a potentially difficult product and supplier selection negotiation. As well as the technical aspects, he also deals with the vital tasks of keeping the business objectives in view and everyone on-board. He has the confidence, experience and authority to make this happen and is only interested in helping our business.’

Colin Mills, Chairman

on3

On3

‘On3 is a successful professional services business but we wanted to differentiate ourselves and increase our value by creating a new technology product for our customers. I needed someone to help me develop this vision, the commercial model, and then to turn this into reality. Freeman Clarke provided detailed technical knowledge and the business focus to make all this possible. From the outset, they felt like part of the team and have helped drive and contribute to all aspects of our success. We now have a thriving new business which would simply not otherwise have been possible.’

Jill Foley, Managing Partner

pitmans

Pitmans LLP

‘Pitmans is a successful, expanding legal firm who need to use IT to improve our internal activities as well as our services to clients. We don’t need a full-time IT director, but Freeman Clarke give us access to a first-class individual for trusted advice, assistance and leadership. They have helped us to reduce our IT costs and improve our efficiency by removing day to day IT issues, and helping us to raise our sights to new ideas and opportunities that IT can offer us.’

Christopher Avery, Managing Partner

 

FCC Paragon

‘FCC Paragon is an established tenant-referencing company based in Portsmouth. Last year, we decided to take steps to ensure the foundations of our IT platform were robust and future-proofed before we embarked on the upcoming projects lined up for 2019. We very quickly engaged the services of a part-time IT Director from Freeman Clarke to move the department on, and ensure we were utilising our in-house developers’ skills in the right area with better support and mentoring. The part-time model has worked exceptionally well for our company, and the IT director is involved with the Board on a regular basis to discuss ongoing programmes and future plans.’

Bryn Cole, Managing Director

Assura plc

‘Assura is a leading UK healthcare Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) listed on the London Stock Exchange.  Assura’s vision is to be the UK’s best developer and owner-manager of primary care property, partnering with GPs to deliver high quality patient care in the community.

Consistently high quality and secure technology services are absolutely critical to the efficient running of our centralised operation and the property management service we provide to our client GPs.  To this end we appointed David as our part-time Freeman Clarke IT Director. David has helped us identify and deliver a series of tactical and strategic initiatives to position us for ongoing service quality and business growth.  The two main areas addressed to-date include a review and improvement of IT security and transition to a totally new IT infrastructure and Managed Service Provider.  Having a part-time, experienced IT Director has enabled us to get traction on some important improvements and deliver with pace and confidence.’

Jonathan Murphy, Finance Director

dovetail

Dovetail Services

‘Dovetail provides a complete subscription fulfilment management service to many of the UK’s magazine publishers. Information Technology is a critical element of what we do and our bespoke IT systems are central to our business strategy. We needed a leader to take charge of these systems – someone with the expertise, confidence and authority to deliver on our plans and to own and run our IT. Freeman Clarke provided us with options for people which allowed us to choose the right individual who would build the kind of positive and committed culture in the IT team that we need. Freeman Clarke’s IT director got stuck in, addressed a range of short-term issues as well as providing a long-term roadmap. He brings deep experience of software development, data migration and real-world business and people management. He has become a valued and committed member of our senior team.’

Rupert Miles, MD

IFF Research

‘IFF Research is a full-service research agency that helps organisations from the public and private sector make better informed decisions. Established in 1965, we’ve proud to have become one of the largest independent research agencies in the UK.

As part of our growth strategy we needed to develop our IT infrastructure to support our people and ensure seamless service delivery to clients. We contacted Freeman Clarke for strategic IT support and appointed Paul Larner as interim CTO. Paul hit the ground running, helping us develop our plan to scale successfully. Working with Freeman Clarke’s extensive network of providers, Paul offered multiple options to expand our platform without huge capital investment.  We decided upon a cloud-hosted platform with virtually unlimited scalability.  After a proof of concept, the full project was successfully delivered, enabling us to scale our operations to 5x our previous capacity.  Paul also lead us through a tendering exercise to identify and then onboard a Managed Services Provider for support and maintenance.  With Paul’s IT leadership, we are on target to increase our revenue by 30%, helping us achieve substantial improvements in our margins.’

Jan Shury, MD

ComXO

‘ComXo is a fast growing business providing global switchboard support services to professional service firms across the City of London and beyond. I needed the experience of a full time IT Director, but didn’t want the cost and Freeman Clarke’s model provided exactly what was required. I now have someone on the board that is used to working at that level and who brings a positive and progressive attitude to my technology function. Our switchboard is wholly reliant on our unique technology and over the last couple of years, since we’ve been working with Freeman Clarke, we have taken major strides forward rolling out our Switchboard Anywhere system, removing single points of failure, improving security and delivering projects on time and within budget.’

Andrew Try, CEO

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Graeme Freeman
Co-Founder and Director

Subscribe to our Business Insights

Plain English board-level briefings focused on technology strategies to deliver competitive advantage and business success.

* Please enter an email address
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Thank you.

You’ll now receive regular expert business insights.

Call us on 0203 020 1864 with any questions.