Professional Services put their trust in the cloud
Having exhibited and visited several exhibitions and events during 2022, it’s clear to see that the professional services sector in the UK is beginning to pick up pace and starting to look at what the new world of work will look like in 2023 and beyond.
Having spoken to several law firms, local solicitors, accountants and IT professionals, both from within our existing customer community and at the various trade shows I’ve attended, it seems that organisations who may have been a little “cloud adverse” at times, are now very much onboard and looking to formalise their cloud services to improve the way they work.
So far, I have attended the LegalEx exhibition as both a speaker and exhibitor, the AccountEx event as an exhibitor, and finally a visit to the Service Desk and IT Support show. The key theme across the first two shows was how solicitors and accountancy firms need to embrace change and opportunities offered by the cloud to help:
- Save money
- Increase efficiencies
- Secure and protect the business
- Improve IT governance.
These four benefits are the main reasons why all professional services organisations should be trusting the cloud to deliver their key business services.
1. Save money
Moving to the cloud often means that an organisation, particularly one with multiple branches, can save money by making better use of the infrastructure services such as those offered through Microsoft Azure.
You only need to read our case study from Howell Jones Solicitors to discover that there is potential for any migration to the cloud to be cost neutral over the initial years.
As technology continues to advance, Azure services offer you the opportunity to upgrade, flexibly downsize or upsize as required and only pay for the services you need.
One of our legal charity customers is already saving nearly 20% of their annual IT costs! They have simply adopted the modern Azure Virtual Desktop hosted in the Microsoft Cloud, where out of hours services automatically scale down to reduce costs and can ramp up automatically on demand.
2. Increased efficiencies
Cloud services hosted properly and managed by a trusted partner, like AspiraCloud, can drastically improve the way your users work, be it in the office, remotely from home, on the go whilst representing a client in court or even from the local coffee shop in between customer appointments.
The ability to sign into a managed device from any location with internet provision, while remaining confident that you can retrieve the files you need, update the team through a quick Teams call and even hold a remote meeting with a prospective new client, means that you are ready to work anytime it suits you, from any place that happens to become your office. Users no longer have to rely on a flaky VPN connection or access an unreliable remote desktop. All your services and applications are delivered to your secure and managed endpoint efficiently and right when you need them. These services are also flexible and scalable, so they can start off small and grow with your business needs, thereby saving even more costs.
3. Security and trust
Of course, no one wants to open the business up to further threats that we all know can come from unmanaged and inappropriate use of IT. Not even the cloud can help protect against careless or negligent behaviour from a busy associate who just wants to get on and work, or can it?
It’s long been said and proved that “organisations are moving to the cloud in order better to protect their business from cyber attack” (Brad Smith – President Microsoft). One only has to think of the servers in your branch offices sucking up the carpet dust under the desk or down in the basement. How much more secure can you make those services compared to the highly available, flexible and replicated services offered by the Microsoft Cloud?
With the additional services offered by Microsoft as part of their cloud services, we can be sure that the best brains in the world are monitoring, protecting and securing the cloud to make sure that even the simplest error in judgement does not prove fatal to your business or its reputation.
Devices and endpoints managed through the cloud with AspiraCloud are subject to the very latest tools both in terms of identity management and device protection, allowing users to adopt a flexible yet secure and managed approach to remotely work from anywhere. For the end user, simply enabling Multi-Factor Authentication can often be the simplest yet most effective way to combat identity theft.
4. Taking control
All too often, organisations are working hard to serve their clients and it is challenging to find the time to step back and look at how you are making the best use of your own IT services whilst maintaining a clear structure and governance process. Working in the cloud and making good use of One Drive, Teams and SharePoint is one of the biggest steps an organisation can take to ensuring their documents and files are managed, stored and accessed in line with company requirements and regulatory body guidelines.
Through several LEXCEL audits and client security reviews with some of our financial services customers, it is evident that a good clear approach to adopting cloud storage and a structured Information Architecture (IA) can work wonders for a business. The Microsoft Cloud has reporting tools in the background that allow you to maintain compliance and retention, ticking another one of your security and regulatory compliance boxes.
So, what’s next for Professional Services?
Perhaps you are already working in the cloud but yet to see any of the benefits discussed? Maybe you are new to the cloud and still unsure where to go? You could be just interested to find out what is next or what you are missing?
AspiraCloud has a four-pillar approach to suit the needs of all organisations as they head to the cloud – irrespective of their current circumstances. Our aim is to work with you to make the changes, yet keep your feet firmly grounded so your business can continue to thrive.
No matter what stage you are at and how complicated you may think the process will be, our expert team are here to talk you though it, provide reference material to back up our words and make adopting the cloud the next best thing you ever did for your business. If you would like to learn more, simply get in touch.