Transform Data International (TDI) has appointed former Phoenix Business Solutions and Tower Law Services founder Roger Pickett to spearhead its growth in the UK, following the launch of TDI’s London office in the summer of 2021. Pickett, who takes on the role of director of UK operations, is charged with growing TDI’s UK legal and corporate business around the Microsoft 365 platform, particularly helping law firms and corporates to leverage SharePoint and Teams in partnership with Repstor (now part of Intapp).
TDI has had significant recent success in Europe in rolling out Repstor’s SharePoint-based document management system, Custodian for Legal, and in helping organisations with the provisioning of Teams.
Speaking to Legal IT Insider, Pickett, who since the summer of 2017 has been the exclusive UK agent for Smart Time Apps, said: “I wouldn’t have got back into content management unless there was this opportunity with Microsoft. It takes me back to the days when iManage said ‘we are going to make document management matter centric.’”
TDI’s recent European wins include Danish non-profit company Dansk Retursystem, which selected Custodian for Legal at the end of last year. Dutch law firm Wieringa Advocaten selected Custodian for Legal in the summer of 2021, while Boels Zanders – an existing Custodian for Legal customer – at the end of 2021 began working with TDI in provisioning Teams for all internal and external communication. Internal communication via Teams will go live at the beginning of this year and external collaboration is expected to begin in the Spring.
Talking to Legal IT Insider about what has changed to enable SharePoint to become more viable as a document management system, Pickett said: “There have been technical restrictions, but part of the problem has been a lack of knowledge of how to structure and write the tools for the provisioning of matters and workflow. There was never a serious consultancy that knew its stuff because we were all focusing on iManage. The cloud is now becoming more acceptable, and the pandemic has changed my mind. Law firms have relied on Teams and every firm is saying, ‘We need to use it, but we don’t know how.’”
Pickett points out that there have been technical changes in SharePoint in the way that channels and workspaces are structured and says: “With the right consultancy and tools it’s definitely possible.”
Pickett’s first job is to hire one or two consultants in the UK for what will to begin with will run as a virtual office. He says: “Our plan is to be a 24/7 workforce so that no matter where you are in Europe you can contact someone any time.”
In a statement Rene Beulen, an IT consultant for TDI and mentor to the board of directors, commented: “Roger has the network and skillset to replicate our success in Europe within the UK and Ireland. We want to build a UK team to match our European team with an ethos of providing the right resource for the right job at the right time.”