As firms begin to embrace the cloud we look at 5 ways cloud can transform your business, support your business strategy and give you a competitive edge.
Productivity & profitability
Cloud enables your staff to work securely from anywhere, anytime on any device and has proven to boost staff productivity and morale. The ability to access all of your applications remotely enables employees to respond to customers quickly and accurately, improving service levels. Guaranteed network uptime improves performance across the business and increases fee earner productivity. In sectors processing high volumes, these gains are crucial to protect margins.
Business continuity and disaster recovery
Built in business continuity means that if the worst does happen and your offices are inaccessible, then your staff can continue to work almost immediately from any internet enabled device. Having a comprehensive disaster recovery programme in place is vital for firms, especially with the rise in cyber-attacks. Increasingly, clients, panels and insurers are asking firms about their disaster recovery and business continuity provision and firms using the cloud have a competitive advantage as a result.
Agility
The cloud is in essence, pay on demand IT. This means you only pay for what you use and can scale up or down when you need to, to meet changing market needs. This flexibility provides enormous benefit to growing firms. You can avoid the high unpredictable financial costs associated with hardware and software upgrades. New application roll outs or test environments can be delivered quickly and efficiently and on demand.
Retention and recruitment
The ability to offer flexible working options is beneficial to the recruitment and retention of staff. By offering the option of home or remote working, a firm can cast their net wider in finding talent. Flexible working options can also support staff wanting more flexibility in their working hours and location after a leave of absence, or prior to retirement, enabling valued and skilled members of the team to be retained.
Innovation
Using a managed cloud service allow your IT teams to focus on activities that deliver value to the business. Rather than maintaining connectivity and infrastructure they can focus on developing solutions which improve customer experience and optimise the working environment for their colleagues. When teams no longer focus on maintaining systems they are free to innovate and contribute to the strategic objectives of the firm.
Innovative firms are leading the way with cloud adoption; embracing the opportunities it presents and gaining a strategic advantage in the fast-changing legal landscape.
About the Author: Andrew Taylor
With over 10 years of experience of IT infrastructure and datacentre solution management, Andrew leads the highly-skilled team of technical consultants and analysts at Converge Technology Specialists. His wealth of knowledge has proved invaluable to clients in terms of network design, harnessing ‘best of breed’ technology and creating infrastructure roadmaps that are aligned with business strategy. Operating solely in the legal sector, Andrew is well-placed to advise on the technical nuances attributed to law firms with particular expertise in application performance improvements linked to infrastructure. Often asked to speak at sector-leading events, Andrew has recently focussed on the growing threat of cybercrime and the risks posed to law firms, offering practical guidance and advice on how to mitigate against the likelihood of attack.
Converge Technology Specialists
As the only Cloud Computing Provider dedicated to UK law firms, Converge Technology Specialists have over 10 years’ experience advising law firms on how to align their IT roadmap with the firm’s overarching business strategy. Delivering a suite of hosted and managed infrastructure services, including Hosted Desktop, IaaS, DRaaS and Infrastructure Support, Converge Technology Specialists work closely with firms to facilitate key business goals including improved productivity, mitigating the risks of cyber-crime and achieving growth.