Technology Enables Social Change
Legacy technology transformation enables the secure transition to a digital strategy and “work smarter not harder” approach.
Lambda Legal is the oldest and largest national legal organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people, and everyone living with HIV through impact litigation, education, and public policy work.
“Over two years ago, we determined that a major IT transformation initiative had to take place to modernize our technology to reduce complexity, increase productivity and minimize cost,” says Charles Fields, Chief Operating Officer of Lambda Legal. “This included upgrading our cyber defense posture to keep pace with the rapidly evolving cyber landscape as well as bolstering our digital interactive capabilities to enhance our donors’ experiences.”
With approximately 100 colleagues and six office locations across the country, Lambda Legal knew the best way to efficiently achieve these goals was
to infuse technology into their daily processes as well as their corporate culture, and they chose Network Support Co. (NSC) as their partner to do so.
NSC’s solution began with an evaluation of not only the technology but also the end user experience. They wanted to understand what tech-related challenges people faced every day – what worked well and what needed improvement. With this understanding, NSC developed and executed a plan to fully update the IT infrastructure and processes as well as the ongoing support model. Centralizing the support and help desk functions improved response times and overall productivity. With this structure in place, Lambda Legal was able to take advantage of NSC’s scale-enabling projects, such as a nationwide device update, and execute with ease.
According to Charles, the result is “a holistic approach that helps us manage not only the technology but also a cultural shift in how we view and integrate technology into our daily work.”
Critical to the partnerships’ success is both parties’ commitment to a truly collaborative relationship built on trust and transparency. Two key components that facilitate this are the continuous access to robust, real time metrics that NSC provides and the ability to generate and easily pass service tickets between the two teams. “While Lambda Legal and NSC are two different organizations, our experience since day one has been seamless,” describes Charles.
A true test of this relationship was the recent and unexpected transition from six regional offices to nearly 90 home offices in response to the recent COVID-19 pandemic, during which Lambda Legal’s Help Desk requests increased more than tenfold. Despite this unexpected challenge, NSC maintained “a better user experience than previously existed for years,” says Charles.
Not content to rest on past achievements, both organizations are excited about the future of their partnership. As Lambda Legal refreshes its strategic plan, NSC will act as a partner that supports the important mission and vision of its team well into the future.
