2020 has not been the most favorable year for legal products and services vendors, at least in terms of the fallout from COVID-19. While world economies have remained all but frozen in the wake of the most taxing public health crisis in recent memory, legal departments and legal professionals have still been hard at work solving large enterprise problems and with fewer resources than usual. While economists describe these circumstances as exceedingly rare, corporate counsel and legal ops professionals know that the innovations they employ during the global pandemic have a long-lasting effect on efficiency and process improvements. Even though these times are stressful, many companies have used the slower pace of business to revise their processes and any enterprise can do the same.
The Only Constant is Change
Many legal technology providers have actually seen increased demand from the global pandemic as many companies are scrambling to find alternative revenue sources and tie up any loose ends on agreements that could impact their cash flows. That said, despite the circumstances in which demand has swelled, much of our previous content included thoughts about scalable solutions and embracing all of your technology tools. This may include triage such as reconfiguring document repositories, shifting your subscriptions towards cloud-based offerings and away from on-premises solutions, and employing new collaboration platforms to make it easy for legal personnel to work from anywhere.
Additionally, legal professionals have been evangelizing automation and analytics offerings for years. These tools often come bundled with many functions and pack in a lot of capabilities that might be overwhelming, but these solutions have been proven to address concerns of accountability while extracting valuable trends from data that your organization has already been collecting. Onit itself even offers free Business Continuity Apps which are a series of Apps we’ve released to support remote workers and their families that are sheltering at home. All in, these tools help organizations make the most informed decisions that keep their work aligned with their customers’ needs.
Keeping Your Eye on the Ball
Throughout the coming months and years, reeling back from all the changes COVID-19 has caused will be a challenge, but coming back from it is far from impossible. If your organization wants to thrive in a post-COVID world, it should stay focused on the value they can extract from the resources already available and be open to and plan for oncoming change. Finally, remember that none of this was easy and we’re all in this together; nobody succeeds if we don’t give our esteemed colleagues the time and environment they need to succeed.
For corporate counsel and legal ops professionals committed to expanding their knowledge-base, dive into our whitepaper, “Driving Savings, Process Efficiency and Collaboration in the Legal Department in a Post-COVID-19 Environment” and stay tuned for more blog posts similar to this one where we will explore the different options for rising strongly from the global pandemic.
