The art of intelligent assumption is no longer enough to keep today’s legal teams afloat. Leveraging data for an improved client service must become the standard. But are business intelligence tools jeopardising the longevity of your career?
As both external and internal demands continue to mount and the duties of associates spread ever thinly across a growing number of different specialisms, more and more legal departments are being pressured to function like individual business units within the wider scope of their company or corporation.
And the truth is a lot of us already know this all too well.
The ongoing fight to be ‘digital ready’
Research by Gartner towards the beginning of 2019 suggested that only 19% of in-house legal teams were classified as ‘digital ready’. And while things may have improved since then, our sector is still trailing in the race of technological uptake.
For many of us, technological developments are still a cause of apprehension. Our deep-seated paranoia of being replaced by machines makes it hard in some cases to see new technology as anything other than a threat to one’s career longevity.
But when it comes to business intelligence solutions – which are seeing increasing rates of adoption and implementation across legal departments of all sizes – associates and decisionmakers can actually leverage them to the betterment of their own individual career, the experience they can deliver to their clients, and the operating efficiency of the wider team.
But what do we mean by business intelligence?
Business intelligence refers to the combinations of software applications, infrastructure, information, tools and best practices which enable legal teams to make quicker, more strategic and more effective decisions at an executive level, and in turn, be more profitable.
The ‘intelligence’ that drives these decisions, generally speaking, is internal data that may otherwise have not been discovered. Business intelligence tools essentially help law firms pinpoint trends that have previously gone unnoticed.
Information that may have always existed, but now through the use of technology is understandable, measurable and actionable.