Path to the Cloud – Your Law Firm is Free to Exercise Choice Whilst Enjoying All the Benefits
by Fiona Jackson
July 23, 2024
Adoption of cloud computing-based applications is reported to be inevitable, across industries. And any objections that the legal sector had surrounding this technology, the pandemic has put to bed. Consequently, today most law firms are actively pursuing a cloud-first and mobile-first technology strategy as part of their digital transformation initiatives.
As part of this drive, at the top of the list for cloud adoption are typically firms’ practice management and document management systems – two of the three technology pillars in any organisation provisioning legal services. It is logical – these are the core solutions for billing, administration, and legal work product management.
There is a third technology pillar – the CRM system – that holds all the client contacts, prospect details, sales and marketing information, relationship intelligence such as who knows whom, new business opportunities, and so forth.
Interestingly, however, despite the general agreement that cloud is the future alongside application transitioning underway, there is considerable reluctance amongst law firms to migrate the CRM function to the cloud. Compliance with GDPR and numerous country-specific data privacy laws (167 and counting) is often cited as a barrier to cloud-based CRM adoption. The reluctance is of course understandable – non-compliance has tangible reputational and financial implications for firms.
In 2022, Tuckers Solicitors became the first law firm to be penalised by the ICO to the tune of £98,000. Furthermore, recognising that remote and hybrid working in the last two-plus years may have increased the security risk, regulators, in general, are taking the stance that these changes in working practices cannot become a reason for non-compliance.
Against this backdrop, the important thing to note is that, when it comes to “to cloud or not to cloud” your CRM, in the first instance, you can adopt a hybrid approach to cloud, as part of your journey to full cloud implementation. In a hybrid cloud situation, whilst your CRM application sits in the cloud, your data can be on-premises behind a firewall or in a private cloud. The benefit? You get the best of both worlds – i.e., you exercise choice over where your CRM data resides, whilst enjoying all the benefits of SaaS, such as seamless introduction of new functionality and features.
Whilst full SaaS adoption for business applications is the future, firms can adopt the cloud incrementally, based on their comfort level. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. There is merit in gradually moving business-critical applications to the cloud so that important initiatives such as change management can be embedded, ensuring that business disruption is minimised. Follow InterAction+ on LinkedIn to stay current on legal innovations firms are using to find, win, and keep business.
To give you an example, pretty much like clockwork, on every third Thursday of the month, LexisNexis® InterAction® releases updates, enhancements, and new features to help improve usability, productivity, and efficiency. To illustrate, recently a series of enhancements were made to enable users to scan business cards through their mobile devices with the information automatically stored in InterAction. No more losing contact details when at events or meetings. Another example – users can filter an event list to choose what is invisible in the grids.
Likewise, there have been enhancements related to the “Objectives and Initiatives” feature. Users can now capture specific criteria to measure the success of their Initiatives and assign quantifiable target values as part of the campaign’s objectives. In the current climate of economic uncertainty and increasing pressure on business development and marketing budgets, my clients tell me that these new features will be extremely useful to them in helping to demonstrate the value of their business function to the firms.
Another improvement that is worth a shout-out is when users use InterAction Mobile. Users can edit and delete “Tasks” and even mark the tasks as complete whilst on the go. Request a demo today to experience all the bells and whistles of InterAction+.
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Fiona Jackson Client Advisor, LexisNexis InterAction
Fiona was previously a Client Advisor for five years at LexisNexis Enterprise Solutions; and was often described as "an extension to our business" by her clients. She has now returned to the company to drive an InterAction ‘repositioning’ project for a large London law firm. Fiona is also working with other firms to help them align CRM to wider business development strategies. She specialises in strategic and tactical CRM best practice, and as an expert in devising user adoption strategies, her experience in rolling out and repositioning InterAction as a business tool is proving invaluable to clients. Fiona is mother to two teenagers, who keep her firmly on her toes. Living in Hertfordshire, she loves walking, is often found obsessing over the latest box set and enjoys all that country pubs have to offer. She also has a spectacular Gin collection of her own. Recently, Fiona has discovered a love for cooking – the varying degrees of success hasn’t stopped her from continuing to giving it a go! |