Here Karen Jacks, IT director at Bird & Bird; Francesc Muñoz, chief information officer at Cuatrecasas, Gonçalves Pereira and Richard Hodkinson, chief technology officer at DWF share with us their strategic technology priorities for the next 12-18 months.
Karen Jacks
1.Use technology to both improve our service delivery from more integrated service management through to delivery of solutions and applications to enable the mobile, agile modern lawyer in an evolving digital world.
2.Exploring how we can harness technology to enable greater efficiencies in everything we do in providing a first class Client service from matter inception through to closing.
3.Focus on how we manage our client intelligence and relationships with the deployment of a modern, agile platform encompassing the most up to date knowledge of our clients and sectors globally and improving the delivery of this business intelligence with more flexible analytic toolkits.
Francesc Muñoz
1.Cloud first: To consider the cloud as the primary option for IT (SaaS, PaaS and IaaS). As examples of our cloud first strategy we’re going to move our existing DM platform to a native cloud based solution this year and we’re finalizing the movement of our infrastructure to the cloud (Azure).
2.Transforming the business: The firm is asking IT to become a real business partner. We have started to work with them with in roles like the Digital Coach (beyond the trainer, the business process consultant or the legal project manager).
3.R&D and Innovation: With the inputs that we receive from digital coaching we’re leveraging this insight and with the knowledge of the new technologies and solutions that are arriving to the legal sector we’re matching them in order to improve the way we work. We’re also starting an open innovation project.
Richard Hodkinson
1.Consolidation and user experience which gives a focus to what the processes and the supporting technology looks like from the consumer – the fee earner and importantly the client. For the internal audience this will look to meld together the recent round of investments made in technology to be a more seamless and integrated, eventually making the day for the fee earner easier to get through – less fighting with poor systems and processes. Likewise, looking at the client experience through their lens means the quasi digital agenda will move to a more compelling place with DWFLink.
2.Security has always to be a concern of substance with the proliferation of the ‘internet of things’. More data accessed by more people in more places on more devices with greater sophistication of the criminals means awareness and investment has to be sustained.
3.Cloud and managing both data and applications to a safer more accessible space with different commercial models is very much part of our journey. Expansion of the business and experimentation with new operating models using cloud and hosted services to mobilise the notions quicker is what we build towards. More services and products will be moved rolling forward to create more internal ‘bandwidth’ to create value.
This article first appeared in the latest Legal IT Insider