Making the most of what technology has to offer
With continuous global financial pressures, organisations are compelled to reduce operational costs, streamline efficiency and at the same time accelerate growth. Innovations and technology are evolving at such a rapid speed, yesterday’s technology are now much more affordable to SME’s.
Most Law Firms understand the necessity of investment required to meet these needs such as a global shift towards Client Relationship Management (CRM), Worklflow and most importantly, Mobility.
We have compiled a list of 5 innovative areas that Law Firms should consider, or be focusing on when choosing an IT partner that will help drive efficiency and profitability:
- Examine and Understand
- Helping you to become more strategic
- Business Added Value
- Proactive Partner – Innovations
- Collaboration With Business Applications
1. Examine and Understand: 6 month – 3 year roadmap
How much time is being spent “patching” your problems rather than preempting them?
“Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement. If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control and if you can’t control it, you can’t improve it”. It is therefore imperative that you work with a company that examines and understands.
Examine
This is not just monitoring your systems, we are suggesting that your IT partner should examine your business process requirements from a complete ICT perspective.
Understand
Although most companies understand the technical analysis aspects of monitoring, we are referring to an in-depth understanding of where your business needs to be heading towards from an ICT requirement within a 6 month to 3 year roadmap.
2. Managed IT Services Helping You to Become More Strategic
Where will your company be from an IT perspective this time next year?
IT is burdened by an overwhelming array of regulatory, compliance, security, technology, expense, policy and legacy technology constraints that limit organisations to quickly adapt.
To keep pace with technological changes, you are relying on your IT partner to provide the business with greater speed to market. It means being able to introduce new technology without concern about issues such as staffing, connectivity or day-to-day infrastructure management.
This strategic approach allows for a collaboration of more integrated services that enhances performance levels, not just for the IT infrastructure, but for productivity and efficiency.
3. Business Value
When last did you carry out a market analyses or benchmark exercise?
It is a costly exercise for any organisation to reskill staff and keep abreast of industry developments or certifications. Therefore your technology partner should be removing these burdens by providing support and leadership for specific business processes. The following outline three key areas where they should add value to your business:
- Providing your organisation with skills and experience that are making your firm much more productive, especially with regard to application requirements
- Help to drive productivity levels across the business operations by speeding up application deployment times and reducing the time that employees must wait for IT efficiencies to be delivered
- Driving higher revenue by lowering the number of downtime hours organisations experience per year
4. Pro-Active Partner & Innovations
What innovations or improvements have been implemented to your IT infrastructure in the last 6 months?
The innovation rate of all technology media including tablets, social software and smartphones is accelerating faster than organisations’ adaption rate. It is only from a secure platform that enterprises can take the next step to meeting technological changes like cloud computing.
Your IT Partner not only need to manage costs but they also need to innovate in order for you to remain relevant. It is therefore imperative that they understand how innovation will shape your IT requirements in the coming years.
- Reduce costs and meet key financial performance metrics
- Getting access to innovative services that can support greater business agility
- Help accelerate the pace of change Law Firms need to make in order to stay competitive
5. Collaboration with Application Software
Do you have to keep making the suggestions for your IT improvements?
With most of the law firms already very much technology driven and at the rate that aspect of daily business operational requirements are developing, it essential to partner with a firm that collaborates with your practice management software.
I am sure most readers will agree that their application software (good or bad) are one of the most crucial parts for daily operations of the law firm. Ensure therefore that your IT partner triage on your behalf by communicating with third party software providers to develop more bespoke solutions for you and/or assist with problem solving when errors occur.