Clifford Chance is one of the largest law firms in the world and belongs to the so-called "Magic Circle Law Firms". The largest office, with around 2,000 lawyers and staff, is located in London. The firm has an extensive global network and is represented by around 600 partners and a total of approximately 6,500 employees in 25 countries with 35 offices. Clifford Chance in Germany is the second largest country unit globally, with approximately 70 partners and more than 800 employees. The three German offices are located in Düsseldorf, Frankfurt am Main and Munich.
We asked Thomas Duhm (Managing Director of Clifford Chance Services GmbH) how the importance of the data center should be classified strategically for Clifford Chance. In response from Mr. Duhm: "The question should better be: How should the IT strategy for Clifford Chance be classified?" Clifford Chance operates four productive data centers. Of these, one in the US (New York) including a failover data center in Washington and one in Hong Kong including a failover data center. In continental Europe and the UK, one is located in the Rhine-Main area and one in London. These two active-active data centers mirror each other to form the failover."
Our cooperation with Clifford Chance has been in place since May 2010, at which time the Service Business Unit of the Data Center Group came into play. An offer for the entire maintenance and service management was worked out, which offered an optimal price-performance ratio. This business relationship developed positively from the outset and still enjoys a high level of basic trust today. As commercial aspects are always important for Clifford Chance, very effective as well as efficient processes were implemented for the handling of the maintenance work.
According to Mr. Duhm, there were decisive factors for Clifford Chance to extend the contract for 3 years.
"At Data Center Group, you feel appreciated and understood as a customer. We noticed very positively that prior to the negotiation of the new contract, the management of Data Center Group was present during talks and thus "showed the flag". DCG always had an open ear for suggestions for improvement, which were then quickly implemented. Against this background and the very good price-performance ratio of the new maintenance and service contract, it was concluded for a term of 3 years.
The service portfolio of the Data Center Group has also changed over the years, expanded, as Mr. Duhm describes it. "At the Data Center Group, a continuous development of the service portfolio can be seen, which always meet the latest requirements. Thus, all operating and fault messages of the data center were switched to the NOC (Network Operations Center) the Data Center Group. This ensures 24/7 availability, including compliance with all agreed SLAs (Service Level Agreements). Furthermore, the use of a fully comprehensive online monitoring system was offered." The DC IT Monitoring is a special development from the Data Center Group and enables among other things also the energetic connections of the data center to represent as well as the enterprise under energy efficiency criteria to optimize.
In general, regarding personal support, competencies, maintenance concepts, incident management, etc., Mr. Duhm had the following to say: "Basically, our satisfaction with the services provided by the Data Center Group is very high. The personal support is also on a very good level. Response times to inquiries of any kind are also good. Thus, customer satisfaction has been present throughout the entire
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