Bellis Cooley Architects choose Workspace mini

Bellis Cooley Architects, established in August 2010, is a London based architectural practice with clients across the British Isles. Managing Director, Ralph Cooley recognised the need for a good IT infrastructure from the onset and after some research identified Workspace mini as the most fitting solution on the market.

Workspace mini is an off the shelf knowledge management solution created specifically for small to medium sized businesses in the construction industry supply chain. Workspace mini stores information in one central repository and enables the efficient running of a business around core databases and standardised procedures.

"As a start up business our IT initially consisted of five individual computers with a Dropbox server and two laptops. Files could be shared using yellow folders on the server but contacts and emails were stored on individual PCs"explains Mr Cooley. "Our set up was fine when there were only a couple of us but as we grow it's just not a practical way of working. It was getting difficult to search for documents other people had created and tracking down contact information was taking an unnecessary amount of time."

Mr Cooley was familiar with Workspace having investigated it for a previous practice. "I like the way it mimics Microsoft Outlook, making it very intuitive and user friendly" he explains. "I also like the way that Union Square put you in touch with other users so you can get an honest firsthand account of the business benefits. I visited Rolfe Judd Architects for a demo, which really helped with our decision making."

Bellis Cooley begins implementation this week and hopes to be fully up and running in the next couple of months. Starting as they mean to go, this centralised approach to document management will provide a strong platform on which the business can grow.