Nick Hayne at Quiss on where cloud adoption sits on the future skyline for SME law firm operations
What better way to start the new year, and a new decade, than thinking about the future?
Although there are many technologies that should, by 2020, be utterly ubiquitous among legal businesses, the cloud is one evergreen area of hesitancy for law firms. Or, maybe not. Nick Hayne, head of professional services at Quiss, notes a welcome shift among SME firms’ attitudes to the technology recently. “In the last two years we’ve seen a real mindset change – the barriers to acceptance of cloud have now largely disappeared.”
What’s been holding firms back? Hayne says anxiety around data security is at least partly to blame, which is an understandable consideration. “There has always been a fear around the location of firms’ data – we know security is always a massive concern. One way we can get past that fear is to highlight the level of investment that technology companies put into the security features of cloud systems.”
But Hayne is also keen to emphasise the fact that the biggest gaps in a firm’s cyber protections often aren’t technological: they originate with staff errors. He cites a recent project Quiss has undertaken with a food manufacturer around phishing attacks, in which (during a test) 20% of staff clicked on a malicious email, potentially breaching security. “You can put all the technological precautions in place that you want, but it always, ultimately, comes down to your people,” he adds.
Naturally, dispelling the doubts and misunderstandings around cloud are important, but Hayne also says there are strategic benefits to wholeheartedly embracing cloud architecture. If SME firms are going to embrace it, then what does he think the next decade will have in store?
This article was first published in LPM’s December/January issue ‘A tale of 2020’, click here to read the full article.
