Uptake of Hosted and Managed IT Services Accelerating.

It is clear that the rate at which legal and accountancy practices are moving to take up outsourced IT services is accelerating quickly; in relation to both fully hosted solutions and managed services.
 
Recent case studies, which you will find under the profiles of suppliers here include:

Wolferstans, solicitors based in Plymouth who moved to a fully hosted services with e-know.net to provide IT that would support their new business strategy.  Not a decision taken lightly, but a move recommended by Inpractice as part of a far reaching review of business and IT strategy that has been successfully introduced and developed by the management team.

Network Law, "a new type of law firm with an innovative business model which allows our staff and consultants to be able competently to work on client matters from any location at any time” again using a fully hosted service from Intercept IT.

Freeth Cartwright, who have relied on managed IT services from Quiss to support their expansion. This has enabled the firm to focus so effectively on improving fee earner use of IT and internal processes that their in-house development team were awarded 'Fee Earner Desktop/Portal of the Year' in the Legal Technology Awards 2008.

Shoosmiths - who have signed up for a managed high bandwidth UK wide IP Network (LANnet) actively managed by InTechnology. This resilient, monitored and managed network allows them to maximize utilization and performance of communications and data transfer between offices and to secure data centres cost effectively.

There are many factors contributing to the decisions to make these moves, including:

  • Increasing demand for higher level IT skills and technology solutions that are difficult to maintain internally;

  • A need for more flexibility and scalability of IT solutions to allow business to scale up or down to changes in the market; also to allow more flexible, remote working;

  • Demand for extended support beyond standard office hours;

  • The attractions of monthly charges that vary with usage, instead of capital investment; and,

  • Better return on investment (ROI) through tighter management of the IT function using Service Level Agreements (SLA's) and through release of internal resources to focus on improving use of technology tools and business processes.

  • Significant advances in the capabilities of providers, the technologies and solutions they can deliver through an increasingly fast and stable online environment. (For example, BT’s recent launch of its revolutionary 21st Century Network (21CN) programme.)

For more information, or to set up an evaluation of the benefits your own practice could achieve by taking up more managed or hosted IT in some areas of your operations; who to use and how best to manage any changes, contact Bill Kirby at bkirby@managedservicesconsultancy or on 07946 251277.