McVey & Murricane Gain Advanced Web Management with Bloxx

“All of our expectations have been met and we are constantly finding additional benefits from the system the more we use it.”

Aiden Curran, Head of IT, McVey and Murricane

Company Background

Investment in people and an innovative approach to IT has enabled McVey and Murricane to establish itself as one of the most progressive legal practices in Scotland. A small practice with institutional clients, the firm is achieving remarkable growth. Its main service areas focus on providing re-mortgaging services to a number of banks and conveyancing services to estate agencies and major high street lenders.

The partnership practice takes an enterprise approach to managing its operations, with a dedicated ICT department supporting its growth. The use of IT is helping the firm to achieve significant client success resulting in a dramatic rise in fee income and business expansion. Over the years the company has continuously adapted its operations to meet the ever changing requirements of its clients. It has invested heavily in technology meaning it can deliver more information, better value and a higher level of service

The Challenge

The Internet is critical for McVey and Murricane’s business and with the growth and dynamic nature of the web, it felt it needed a web filter that could provide the management and security required to cope with this evolution. The company had previously used Cyberguard Webwasher for web filtering but found it did not provide sufficient reporting and lacked the administration features required for security and management.

Head of IT, Aiden Curran, wanted a product that would allow the IT team to easily manage Internet usage and traffic, but would also provide enhanced administration with an in-depth reporting facility that would let IT staff create ad-hoc reports. From a staff productivity perspective, Curran wanted a web filter that would allow the company to manage access to non-work related web sites.

The Solution

McVey and Murricane’s IT team spent considerable time reviewing several web filtering products and eventually decided that the Bloxx web filtering appliance was the best fit for their needs.

“There were many reasons we decided to implement Bloxx; it ticked all the boxes and had all the features we required. All of the feature rich tools came as standard including reporting,” comments Curran. “I wanted a product that would be easy to manage and also provide outstanding protection for our staff, clients and computer network.”

The Results

The Bloxx appliance integrated seamlessly into McVey and Murricane’s network and since deployment the company has been able to accurately gauge staff Internet usage patterns, strengthen its acceptable usage policies, and provide an additional layer of security for its staff accessing the internet.

The management facility Bloxx provides as standard on the appliance has resulted in numerous benefits for the company. It has seen a marked increase in productivity from staff members.

“Staff productivity has definitely increased since deploying Bloxx. The initial reports on Internet activity showed us patterns and usage of certain sites which has now allowed us to provide staff access to specific work-related sites and to regulate access to non-work related sites,” Curran states. “As all reporting is automated and is made available to me by email, even if I am out of the office I can still get a full breakdown of user activity from the reports.”

The value of Bloxx to the company has been huge – both in saving money and reducing IT management time.

“We have definitely saved money as I spent a lot of time reviewing alternative web filtering products and none of them could match the cost of the Bloxx appliance. The cost of upgrading the system we had before Bloxx would also have been prohibitive,” notes Curran. “IT Management time has been significantly reduced as we now spend much less time blocking inappropriate sites or allowing access to business related sites and reports can be created in a fraction of the time it used to take. Less time spent administering the system means more time to spend on other IT issues.”

“Bloxx has so many useful features; the whole command interface provides a depth of administration and reporting features. All of our expectations have been met and we are constantly finding additional benefits from the system the more we use it,” concludes Curran.