How cloud-savvy are you and your law firm?
If the extent of your savviness is knowing how to use OneDrive to store documents, please continue reading.
Cloud computing is exploding, and smart law firms are going beyond simply using the cloud for off-site document storage and using it to make their practices safer and more efficient.
“One size doesn’t fit all, and workloads themselves change over time,” writes Forbes Technology Council member Rajiv Mirani in this article. “The right cloud choice today might not be the right one tomorrow. Cloud-savvy strategies that address businesses’ unique needs will lead the way.”
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3 Cloud-Savvy Solutions for Your Firm
There are lots of questions a law firm should ask when evaluating cloud-based capabilities. Here are some of the key ones, says Mirani:
“Do we have the tools we need? Which vendor should we select? What roles will we need to fill? And most importantly, have we accounted for all the right pieces to build and sustain a cloud strategy?”
Cloud Savvy Solution #1: Make sure your public and private cloud applications are symmetrical. “Ensuring your public and private environments look and function the same allows the flexibility to move applications where they make the most sense without needing to rearchitect them, which is often extremely expensive and time-consuming,” writes Mirani. “It can also significantly simplify your operations because your IT team won’t need to manage completely different environments, while policy for improving security can easily apply across both cloud and on-prem. Ultimately, application portability, license portability and operational simplicity are the hallmarks of a successful hybrid and multicloud strategy and the key things to consider when selecting a solution.”
Cloud Savvy Solution #2: Try to hire generalists for your office team instead of specialists. There’s a lot to be said for being a specialist at something. But specialists are more prone to burnout than generalists, research suggests, while generalists tend to be more adaptable and built for the long haul. “The same tends to go for IT generalists,” says Mirani. “In the cloud era, being cloud-savvy often means hiring big-picture, cross-disciplined thinkers. It’s a constantly changing tech space, and generalist hires tend to stay with the company for longer because they can quickly adapt to any new routes their roles might take. Thinking bigger picture also means hiring more for soft skills than leaders had previously for tech-forward roles. These soft skills, including problem-solving, critical thinking and communication, will only become more necessary and valuable as skills that are uniquely human (and that no robot can automate).”
Cloud Savvy Solution #3: Use cloud automation to free up your team’s valuable time. “Adopting the right infrastructure that supports automation can reduce and ease day-to-day management tasks for IT teams of all sizes and in all industries. You can use automation to shift from ‘the dull and the dangerous,’ as McKinsey put it, ‘paving the way for more engaging work and learning.’ Your team can easily automate routine tasks, such as provisioning, upgrades and scaling of applications, to ensure the team can focus on more strategic activities.”
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