Case Study: Legal and General Investment Management

March 2007

Instant, Reliable Volume

As one of the top 5 management firms in the UK, Legal and General Investment Management works hard to provide the highest quality of service for over 5.6 million customers. With operations in the UK, USA, Netherlands, France and Germany, reliable communications are vital to its success.

The Legal and General Group invests over £211 billion on behalf of investors, policyholders and institutions. The staff at the London offices invests pension funds in the markets by trading bonds and shares. Their work ensures so that the money in pension funds is used wisely and provides an income stream for their clients. All day long, the staff confirms these trades and transactions by fax.

Before they found Interfax and get rid of all their fax machines, sending high volumes of confidential faxes was cumbersome and unreliable. For years, the staff at the London office wasted valuable time standing around the fax machines, watching faxes to make sure they went through. With large volumes, they didn't always wait!

"One department sends over 80 faxes in every batch," Richard Cranfield, the Project Manager explained. "At the end of a long day, they'd watch a few pages go through, then say, 'OK, it's 6:00 pm. Let's go home.'" But sometimes, the fax machine would jam halfway through and the last 40 faxes wouldn't go out. They wouldn't discover it till the next morning -- when it was far too late!

"We were looking for a new solution," Cranfield said. "With Interfax, we press a button."

Confirmation of Secure Transactions

Because it is an investment firm, security is the main concern at Legal and General. They were pleased to discover that the faxes sent through Interfax can be both signed and encrypted.

Instead of leaving them vulnerable, using Interfax is far more secure than sending a paper fax. "They were able to allay all our fears," Cranfield said. "We are very happy with it."

Not only is a key element of their business more secure, but Interfax has streamlined the entire process of sending faxes.

With the old fax machines, back-office staff had to feed in the pages, wait for then to go through, then call to confirm that each customer had received them. Sometimes, it took several calls to reach a customer and interrupt them to ask about the fax. With Interfax, the need for calling is completely eliminated.

Once a fax has been sent, the sender simply checks the website to instantly find out about its status.

Very Little Support Needed

Before they made the decision to switch to Interfax, Legal and General used the trial version of Interfax for a few weeks to see how they liked it. "It's OK to see brochures," Cranfield said. "But you need to actually play with it and see it in action. Once we did that, we realized it was much easier and more secure!"

Legal and General has an in-house help desk for IT support, but there was very little need for help. Occasionally, someone asks about a more advanced feature. "If they want to do something unusual, I ask them to talk to Interfax directly. I have so much confidence in them, I don't get involved much."

A New Problem

Change is notorious for evoking resistance. When they decided to replace their fax machines with Interfax, Cranfield expected to grapple with issues among his staff. To his surprise, that never happened.

"My problem now," Cranfield said, "is that the more users hear about it, the more they want it. I'm constantly saying, 'Oh, no ... another one!'"

Even the users who send faxes infrequently want an Interfax line, in case they need it in the future. "My boss will pay for it, because it gives our users exactly what they want! It's a great thing."