5 Sep 2010

Reports/Case studies

MATISSE Case Study - MacAlister Elliott and Partners Lymington - Case Study
(30 Aug 2007)

MATISSE Smarter-Working CASE STUDY

Organisation – MacAlister Elliott and Partners (MEP) - Lymington





MacAlister Elliott and Partners Limited (MEP), fisheries consultants, was founded in 1976 and has grown into a leading international fisheries development consultancy. The company is truly international, managing major projects in many parts of the world for clients including all the major funding agencies and many other notable public and private sector organisations.


With a permanent staff of 12 who work at the MEP Head Office in Lymington are a further 25 to 50 staff employed on short and long-term contracts world-wide. Typical of a number of Small to Medium Enterprises, MEP had to a small degree been operating an informal home working policy prior to hearing about the MATISSE Teleworking Pilot via Business Link.  The MATISSE project acted as a catalyst for the organisation to enable all those who wanted to work from home to do so, supported by processes and technology that enabled VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and secure remote system access via PC, Laptop or Blackberry.


According to Project Director Stephen Akester the MATISSE project “provided experience and enabled us to become less office based but still maintain our productivity. In particular, with major projects in Asia and the Far East, we have been able to better align our core working hours with those of our clients. This has also meant that travel is largely outside of peak times and is also reduced. Overall we have found that home based working improved concentration levels and has achieved  the triple benefit of cost savings, a more client and family friendly form of working which pleasingly is also good for the environment”

ICT Enabling Costs

This has involved provision of mobile (VOIP) phones and the purchase of a Blackberry PDA and facilities that enable simple call forwarding, divert and voicemail facilities. The costs have probably equated to around £500 per user.

Managing the more virtual team

There were some technology related problems initially and the need to communicate staff wherabouts at any given time soon became very apparent. MEP found that they needed to structure a process to successfully implement a more flexible and virtual way of working. Once everyone became used to the need to book their time ‘out of the office’ and knew who to tell, MEP report that the system worked perfectly for them. Face to face meeting with clients and colleagues still feature though increased use is made of phone and email. This improved connectivity has proved particularly valuable especially with some of MEP’s staff working overseas for up to four months at a time and need to keep in regular touch with HQ.