Law firms are moving to the cloud—with good reason. Naysayer arguments are abating, firms are recognizing the value it provides to them, and a recent ABA study found that 96% of law firms would consider cloud services. Over the years, the reasons firms choose cloud hosting have evolved and the barriers to adoption have fallen; cloud providers have proven time and time again that they are more security, uptime, collaboration, and freedom for firms who have made the move.
Today, we would like to turn our attention to another of the major reasons firms like yours turn to the cloud to host their document management, practice management, and more: Reduced reliance on IT.
Focus on Your Practice, Not on Patches
Whether internally or externally managed/on-call, your IT department has long been a necessity for your firm. For decades, IT has provided your firm with its technology infrastructure, making sure that everything runs smoothly and securely.
Unfortunately, you are in the business of law, not IT management. Often, your IT department is already overworked, spending hours trying to hold together your stack of applications on an outdated infrastructure. Meanwhile, they are not providing the value you would like to see as they toil away on low-level IT tasks.
The low-level tasks are often the ones take the most time—things an IT professional may refer to as “scutwork.” Think of it this way: you wouldn’t pay a junior partner to only do the work of a paralegal.
The Cloud’s Fundamental Impact on IT
When you move to the cloud, you are not only able to cap or reduce your IT spending and avoid making another ‘necessary hire’ to manage the hardware management, software updates/patches, configurations, and integration management, the IT department can focus on more proactive ventures.
Though many may claim that a move to the cloud signals a death knell for the IT department, analysts disagree. Tom Austin, head of software research at Gartner, explains in an article on the relationship between cloud and the IT department:
“IT management that ignores the opportunities and benefits is making a fatal mistake, because it will decrease their competitive advantage. It will be a career mistake too because rivals will exploit the productivity and economic cost advantages associated with cloud.”
As with the theory that PC Lan revolution of the 90s would kill the mainframe, Austin believes that the cloud’s impact on IT will not “kill” the IT department, instead presenting new opportunities. Jonathan Yarmis, vice-president of disruptive technology at AMR Research, states that “[The IT Department] will be challenged to redefine the value proposition or realize it no longer makes sense to do low-value things,” noting that many IT departments already struggle to keep up with the necessary tasks each day.
Cap or Reduce Spending, Increase IT Productivity and Proactivity with Flywire
When law firms move to the cloud, they free their IT teams to do more with less and allowing the department head to take the lead as an orchestrator and facilitator—rather than the “tech support” guy. When you make the move to the cloud with the help of Flywire Technology, our experienced staff takes care of the updates, upgrades, installations, and end user support for you.
If you need out of site, out of mind management and maintenance of your servers, we’re here to help. Whether you are looking to reduce or completely mitigate your reliance on internal or on-call IT services, look no further than Flywire. We invite you to read more about the benefits of moving to the cloud, see what others have said about our service, and contact us for more information.