How Microsoft-Integrated Smart Technology is Helping to Tackle 5 Key Hybrid Working Challenges in the Legal Sector
Law firms understandably have a focus on maximising time and resources. Efficiency, productivity and client satisfaction lead to business growth.
In addition to seeking to minimise miscommunications, inefficiencies or blockers, organisations are facing important challenges around the transition to flexible and hybrid working.
As leaders in the legal sector prepare to congregate in London for the annual British Legal Technology Forum, Europe’s largest legal technology conference and exhibition, this article highlights how Microsoft-Integrated smart workplace solutions are helping to tackle five key challenges.
1. Making a Smooth Transition to Flexible and Hybrid Working
Part of the challenge with hybrid working for law firms is how to make it work for employees who have become accustomed to working from home or other remote locations all week.
Smart workplace technology helps to make this transition, to a more flexible way of working, smoother for the organisation and its people.
Solutions from GoBright, for example, allow legal professionals to check real-time availability and to reserve a car parking space, desk and meeting room straight from their smartphone. Employees can see at a glance from the app, which integrates neatly with Microsoft Teams, what days their colleagues are in. This helps them to plan and organise in-person collaboration, cross-team conversations and project meetings.
Desks can be set up with a 21:9 ultra-wide screen like the Jupiter Pana 34-inch display, with its flexible camera module, to create a smart all-in-one desktop and video conferencing solution.
Smart workplace technology allows managers to gather data and insights into the use of desks, rooms and other areas – to make the most efficient use of the space available and assess future needs.
How technology supports and drives the legal sector’s transition towards flexible and hybrid working will be a central theme of the sell-out British Legal Technology Forum in May.
2. Creating Immersive In-Meeting Experiences So Everyone is Seen, Heard and Engaged
In the legal sector, time is money. Every meeting matters and every minute counts. For the most immersive, collaborative and productive meetings it requires three things: everyone seen, everyone heard and everybody engaged.
Smart workplace technology has advanced rapidly to deliver on all three aspects and create a naturally immersive in-meeting experience.
Combining intelligent Microsoft-certified solutions from Huddly cameras and Nureva audio (with its Microphone Mist technologyä) remote participants can see and hear every conversation in the meeting room – and have a clear view of everything on the whiteboard.
Add the Microsoft-endorsed Jupiter 21:9 ultra-wide screen display and people in the room can comfortably see and hear those participating remotely, creating deeper connection and facilitating distraction-free communications.
When Huddly, Nureva and Jupiter are put together they work in seamless harmony to deliver Signature Microsoft Teams Rooms at scale, bring out the best of Microsoft Team’s Front Row layout and add a touch of Hollywood to the smart meeting experience. The perfect combination for large and XL meeting spaces.
When designed well, hybrid meeting solutions take care of the space and technology so people can focus on what they do best and make the most of every touchpoint.
3. Enabling Flexible Space for Video Conferencing
The hybrid working approach means meeting spaces are no longer one-dimensional. They must be flexible enough to cater for the diverse working patterns of legal professionals, support group collaboration and facilitate agile working.
Intelligent combinations of smart workplace technology – seamlessly integrating with the Microsoft ecosystem and Signature Microsoft Teams Rooms – enable spaces of all shapes and sizes to be enabled for video conferencing. Adaptable from small rooms to boardrooms, and from large to extra-large meeting rooms.
Office spaces in forward-thinking legal firms and legal businesses are being transformed into hubs of innovation, environments that inspire meaningful collaboration, and space for greater productivity and efficiency.
Virtual collaboration tools from leading brands such as Nureva, Huddly, GoBright and Jupiter enable legal professionals to engage in real-time discussions and collaborative work, regardless of physical location. Video communication platforms like Microsoft Teams make communications among team members, clients and stakeholders easier and better.
Ascentae is already working across the legal sector, supporting clients – including Eversheds Sutherland, Ashurst, and Baker McKenzie – in the delivery of their hybrid working solutions for greater collaboration, productivity and efficiency.
Our team of experts will be on hand at the British Legal Technology Forum to help legal leaders along their intelligent workplace and smart meeting journey. The team also provides demonstrations and events at our London Experience Centre [link to LEC page on website] throughout the year.
4. Monitoring and Evaluating How Space is Being Used to Optimise Efficiency
The transition to flexible and hybrid working is a process of evolution. The challenge is having a way to know what’s working and what’s not, to maximise efficiency.
Knowing how various spaces and meeting rooms are being used helps a law firm or legal business to understand employees’ needs, identify underused space and make strategic decisions – both in the short term and for the future.
As legal leaders attending the British Legal Technology Forum will discover, smart workplace management solutions like GoBright can provide data analytics and insights for desk booking, room booking and visitor management.
Having the bigger picture enables organisations to optimise efficient use of space, create an environment that supports high performing teams, and better manage the cost of real estate.
5. Choosing the Right Technology Investment for Current and Future Needs
Every organisation wants to make good choices and the best investments, and see a good return on those investments – strategically, operationally, financially.
However, it’s not always easy to see the wood for the trees and find the right solutions. Organisations in the legal sector may face similar challenges but each law firm or legal business is different and has its own needs.
It’s why Ascentae will be at the British Legal Technology Forum in London on 14th May, to offer expert advice around hybrid working solutions for the smart workplace. Visit us at the Forum and let us be your guide around Microsoft-integrated and Microsoft certified solutions, product combinations, and flexible approaches to scaling hybrid working technology.
Smart Technology – Driving the Legal Sector into the Next Decade and Beyond
To maximise time and resources, law firms and legal businesses need strategies, systems, processes and platforms.
Events like the British Legal Technology Forum give leaders and decision-makers the opportunity to discover and explore solutions to their organisation’s specific challenges. A chance to see demonstrations, seek expert advice and get those all important questions answered.
Innovative technology, integrating seamlessly with the Microsoft ecosystem, is helping the legal sector deliver better performance by creating and evolving the smarter workplace.
