On behalf of CCH I attended the NZ Law Awards event last Thursday night and had the pleasure of presenting the inaugural Tax Law Award.

We think that this award is a great addition to the stable of law awards that recognise the excellence in client service that we all aspire to! Tax is a key part of most commercial transactions but this award acknowledges the expertise of these true specialists who make tax their business and who contibute a huge amount to tax policy in New Zealand.

You don’t get nominated for an award like this unless your clients think you do a great job - so congratulations to all the finalists and of course the winner!

The winner was Minter Ellison Rudd Watts; First runner up was Denham Martin; Second runner up was Geoffrey Clews; and the other finalists were Russell McVeagh and Stephen Tomlinson.  

 Here is a picture of Andrew Ryan. Tax Partner Minter Ellison Rudd Watts with me after he had accepted the award. 

Here is a photo of Andrew Ryan, Tax Partner at Minter Ellison Rudd Watts with me after he had accepted the award

When we first launched IntelliConnect, we promised that we would constantly evolve the platform in response to the feedback our customers provide on how they want to use it.  We’re staying true to that promise with new improvements to the browse and search experience, along with a handy change to the print functionality.  Here’s a sneak peek of the changes, which will be taking effect from 2 October.

Homepage

The browse list is now automatically open in the left-hand navigation pane, giving you an immediate feel for what you have access to.  The high-level library categories are visible along with any specific titles you have added to “My Favourites”.  Sometimes the simple changes make all the difference.

You will also be able to access search tips, FAQs and the latest news about IntelliConnect directly from the homepage. 

Browsing and searching for titles

Did you know that one of the frequently entered search terms in IntelliConnect is “Master Tax Guide”?  Now when you enter all or part of a title in the search box, you will be asked if you are looking to that title and then taken to its location in the left-hand navigation panel.

You can also search for titles from the new “Titles A-Z” section.  When you click the “Browse” tab it will display a search box so you can search for a particular title or alternately skim the A-Z list.

Printing shortcuts

Sometimes you only want a head note and not the full text of the 60-page judgment that follows it.  Now you can simply highlight the section of text you want to print and click “Print selected text” in the print menu.  The relevant text will print along with the document’s title.

Smoother, faster searching

Observant searchers will notice an improvement in the general search functionality of IntelliConnect.  Theses improvements are due to a number of enhancements including:

• 2300 terms added to the thesaurus
• automatic recognition of plurals and other common variations of terms
• addressing issues related to Boolean proximity searching
• improving the way that long exact phrases are searched and displayed
• improving the way that search terms are highlighted within documents, along with the way that you move from one keyword to the next.

 Let us know what you think, so we can incorporate your recommendations into the next round of enhancements!

CCH New Zealand Limited sponsors many academic prizes as a way of encouraging students in tax and other areas in which we specialise. At the recent AUT Faculty of Business and Law Awards ceremony, CCH’s Tax Team Leader, Carla Cross (right), presented an award for the top graduate in M Bus Majoring in Taxation to Ranjana Gupta (left). Congratulations Ranjana!

Nothing pleases this product developer more that when we can get some honest and constructive feedback from our customers, and we are then able to act upon it! It truly makes you feel good about what you do. 

We have recently been able to introduce some changes to Intelliconnect, many of which are a direct result of feedback from users across the Asia Pacific region such as: 

• Court Ready Cases: for all 2009 cases, there is now a PDF version available via Intelliconnect which gives users a copy of the case report as it appears in Print. We will be including this for all reported cases from now on, and working our way back in time as we go. 
• Search Results Details: as search results are presented, we now give more details in each result heading, detailing not only the heading, type, and applicable dates of that content, but also details of the product from which the content comes.  
• Last Reviewed Dates: this date is now displayed for most commentary paragraphs, so our users now know when our analyst team last reviewed the information displayed. 
• Alphabetical Order: Our topic filter is now displayed in alphabetical order making it much easier to hone in on your required results.  

I should say that some of these items have always been in the development plan, but even then it is satisfying to have our plans and our priorities reinforced by market feedback. 

We have plenty more improvements to come this year too, so do get in touch if you have any feedback. I am very much looking forward to keeping the discussion going.

2010 is off to a good start for us at CCH. Mid January we had the pleasure of hosting the Wolters Kluwer Asia Pacific Executive Team 2010 Conference in beautiful Queenstown. This was a first for many of the team who came from as far and wide as China and India and they are still raving about our Kiwi hospitality and the stunning country we live in.

Four of our customers joined us to talk about the business environment from their perspective – is the recession really over for them? We heard about trends, challenges and opportunities. Also what they need from CCH and other suppliers to support them in reaching their business goals. It was an invaluable session and I thank Simon Redai (Accountancy At Altitude), Janice Hughes (AWS Legal), Janette Matheson (Ibbotson Cooney) and Murray McClennan (WHK Cook Adam Ward Wilson) for taking the time out to talk to us. It is great to really bring customers into our business planning process!

Over the course of 2010 I’d love to talk to more of you. Like many of my colleagues, I visit customers regularly but we can’t reach everyone in person. So I’d welcome your thoughts and comments here on CCHatter.

It takes a lot of courage to bare one’s lily-white legs after a long New Zealand winter, but the CCH New Zealand team of dedicated participants at the 2009 Corporate Challenge did exactly that. It proved to be a worthwhile effort, with Emma Watson winning the trophy for “Fastest Female CEO” with a personal best time over the 5 kilometre course. We are immensely happy with this title as we were one of the smaller teams participating. Congratulations CCH New Zealand for punching above our weight!

Have you got a few volumes of case books, but not a complete set?  Are there gaps on your bookshelf that you’d like to fill? CCH has a limited number of copies of case books in stock that could include those missing volumes you need to make up your full set.

Case books available are:

NZ Company Law Cases Volumes 1 to 9

NZ  Business Law Cases Volumes 1 to 8

NZ Tax Cases Volumes 1 to 8 and 10 to 23  (volume 9 unavailable)

NZ Employment Law Cases Volumes 1 to 8

NZ Conveyancing Cases Volumes 1 to 5

Special offer 60% discount — available only until 31 December

Click here for more details.   Casebooks (2)

We are selling the case books at only $100.00 each (plus GST and postage & handling), which is a 60% discount off the normal volume price – up to 31 December 2009.

To place your order, telephone Customer Services on 0800 500 224.

CCH is delighted to congratulate Lane Neave as the winner of the CCH Employment Law Award.  Pictured here is Emma Watson, Managing Director, CCH New Zealand and Ben Russell, Partner Lane Neave

I found this article which I thought would be relevant for many organisations in the current environment which includes a poll on: What’s the Etiquette for Social Media and the Workplace?  Definitely an interesting read….

http://www.bnet.com/2403-13058_23-358555.html?promo=713&tag=nl.e713