Top 3 Key Performance Indicators For Cloud Value

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3 Important Cloud Performance Indicators

The cloud brings a number of benefits for law firms, but how do you know that your setup is being used to its fullest? Moving to the cloud can take considerable time and resources to execute, and it’s essential to ensure that your investment was well-spent. Monitoring cloud usage and behaviors will help make critical decisions for improving workflows and maximizing the technology’s capabilities. There are three key performance indicators that legal practices should watch to measure cloud value:

1. Costs Before vs. After Integration

One of the cloud’s main selling points is the fact that it promises to cut down operating expenses. On-premises management can be pricey for a law firm, as it must find individuals skilled enough to support the technology, not to mention the hardware and software to set up the infrastructure. Moving these functions to a capable cloud provider takes a considerable amount of pressure off of the legal practice.

Law Practice Cloud Costs Cloud costs are a main KPI to monitor.

Your vendor should make all the necessary investments in maintenance and updates for within their cloud, whether it’s just a data center or a true cloud network. CIO contributor David Spark noted that cost differences associated with reduced resources and consolidated data center functions will significantly decrease operating expenses upon migrating to the cloud. Law firms should monitor bills before and after integration to determine cloud value and how much it’s saving them.

2. Improved User Experience

Cloud solutions should be directly beneficial for workers who are using the platform. Law firm staff members are increasingly seeking to use mobile devices and work in locations outside of the office. This means providing access to business resources when meeting clients, in court and other areas. According to Sparity, mobile users are five times more likely to abandon tasks if the resource isn’t optimized for their device. In addition, 83 percent of respondents note that a seamless experience across devices is important to them.

With support from the cloud, firms can easily provision features and support resources digitally. Lawyers no longer have to walk around with arms full of case files, but can simply access these documents safely and securely through their cloud portal. This not only saves on paper usage, but also provides employees with the flexibility that they demand with mobile devices. Legal practices should track user experience through productivity metrics and behaviors. If a staff member shows higher throughput after migration, the cloud could be a direct driver of this change.

“Legal practices can capture new leads, share outcomes and define next steps”

3. Speed For Response And Development

Faster time to market and quicker issue response times are major benefits that law firms can measure upon transitioning to the cloud. When an issue comes up, it can take a long time to research and fix it manually, particularly when physical files or servers are involved. With the cloud, legal practices can instantly capture new leads, share outcomes and define next steps, Spark stated. These firms should also establish a KPI for the average time between a bug report and solution deployment. The cloud can provide a 30 to 80 percent increase in IT responsiveness for these instances.

Law firms will also want to take into account how long it takes to develop and provision applications on their networks. This KPI will evaluate not only that the practice is establishing something that enriches customer experience, but also is being done quickly enough to benefit the bottom line.

Cloud computing is an investment, and it’s important for law firms to ensure that they are making the most of it. By monitoring KPIs associated with provisioning speed, user experience and costs, legal practices can gauge the value of their cloud setup. Contact Afinety today to learn more about how the cloud can work for your law firm and how to track its value.

Why Cloud Should Be Part Of Your Mobile Strategy

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Legal practice staff members rarely work in only one location. Lawyers might meet up with partners, consult clients and go to court, leaving behind the desktop at the office. Traditionally, lawyers would be required to carry stacks of files with them pertaining to each case, making it easy for these documents to be forgotten, lost or stolen somewhere along the way.

Mobile devices were introduced as a means to provide flexibility, but this hardware alone isn’t enough. Cloud platforms make up for necessary functionality within mobile initiatives. Let’s take a closer look into why the cloud should be part of your mobile strategy:

1. Greater accessibility for business resources

Mobile devices alone can’t guarantee access to necessary information, particularly if it’s only stored on a desktop. CIO noted that the cloud ensures that lawyers have a resource platform wherever it might be required. Paired with a robust mobile strategy, users can have access everywhere possible, solving challenges of scale, platform support and updating. Cloud and mobile technologies provide greater value when used together and actively rely upon each other to produce benefits.

Mobile devices and cloud enable lawyers to access resources from anywhere_AfinetyMobile devices and cloud enable lawyers to access resources from anywhere.

When integrating these tools, legal practices must gauge employee operation requirements. Mobile needs will largely guide cloud strategy to serve as an enabler to stay connected and engaged. Ensure that mobile apps will work even with poor connectivity to provide true anywhere, anytime accessibility.

2. Better security through centralized management

In bring-your-own-device environments, maintaining governance is a considerable challenge for many businesses. Without being able to manage mobile hardware, it’s uncertain that users will follow data best practices, download appropriate applications, regularly update systems and use security capabilities. Wrangling all of the potential devices and enforcing BYOD policies have posed significant problems for organizations, particularly in heavily regulated fields.

The cloud solves a large number of these issues by offering centralized management for security, data access, computation and storage. Computerworld contributor Bill Claybrook noted that with the cloud, organizations can rely on security of the mobile device to get to the app, but will need to authenticate against the back-end system in the cloud to view critical data. This will ensure that even if a phone is lost or stolen, malicious parties can’t access business resources or information.

“Look for cloud providers with uptime records of 99.999% and 24/7/365 monitoring.”

3. Improved recovery strategies

Mobile devices could be a key part of bolstering disaster recovery strategies. If the office, your desktop or critical files are inaccessible, mobile hardware can easily allow work to continue, provided the information has been backed up. The cloud acts as a centralized storage platform that regularly syncs with essential documents. This ensures that the most recent versions are available to continue operations and reduce downtime.

With a capable cloud provider, law firms can quickly recover during disaster situations. ITProPortal contributor Kevin Scott-Cowell noted that cloud vendors keep systems up and running, enabling you to go through your normal operations. Look for uptime records of 99.999 percent and 24/7/365 monitoring to quickly catch and address issues before they cause damage. If something happens on your end, the cloud vendor is available to guide you and restore critical systems as fast as possible.

Mobile initiatives are critical to bolstering law firm capabilities, but the cloud adds extra necessary functionality. The cloud will enable greater accessibility, improved security and better recovery options across mobile hardware. These features will significantly benefit lawyers as they look to operate in more places and view critical documents on their devices. For more information on how law firms can take advantage of the cloud in their mobile strategies, contact Afinety today.

How The Cloud Can Boost Your Disaster Recovery Plan [Video]

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Increase Disaster Recovery Rate For Law Practices

More organizations are creating formal disaster recovery plans to ensure business continuity and minimize downtime during emergencies. Implementing cloud technology as part of this strategy can boost your disaster recovery efforts and yield significant benefits.

Reliability is the number one priority when choosing a disaster recovery solution. Cost and speed of recovery are also critical considerations. The cloud takes care of these needs with accessibility on any device and pay-per-usage plans.

Cloud solutions ensure that if your office or hardware is inaccessible, important files can still be accessed. Organizations can also use the cloud as a backup and archive tool. If data is lost or corrupted, it can be easily restored from saved online versions. For more information on how the cloud can boost your disaster recovery plan, stay tuned with Afinety.

Productivity Benefits Gained From The Cloud [Video]

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Afinety Demonstrates Cloud Law Firm Productivity

Cloud environments bring considerable advantages, but the productivity benefits from using this technology might be the most significant. There are a number of productivity benefits that you can expect by embracing the cloud.

Investing in a tool like the cloud enables workers to access relevant files anytime, anywhere, increasing productivity as much as 400 percent. Nearly three-quarters of businesses noted that the cloud gives them a competitive advantage due to its flexibility to capitalize on opportunities more quickly.

Cloud users have seen real productivity improvement results. In fact, 59 percent of organizations using the cloud are more likely to see productivity benefits like better flexibility and efficiency. To learn more about how the cloud can bring productivity benefits to your law firm, contact Afinety today.