There's no question that technology has significantly changed the way we live and work, and, like it or not, technology is an integral part of modern life in the legal industry. For many firms, the challenge of staying afloat as the sea of technology options constantly evolves and expands can feel like a constant struggle.

Outsourcing can be a great tool to alleviate the pressures to stay current and ensure that you have the technology you need to run your firm as efficiently as possible. By determining where your strengths lie and what challenges you may anticipate down the road, you'll be in a better position to understand how outsourcing can help you meet your objectives, allow your firm to thrive and make your money go further. With the right strategic plan in place, managing your firm's technology doesn't have to be overwhelming.

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Outsourcing Considerations

When firms start trying to figure out how to get ahead in the technology game, outsourcing is often one of the first ideas to come to mind. While partial or total outsourcing might ultimately be the right answer, it's unfortunately not that simple. A lot of nuance goes into the decision to outsource, and there's no one-size-fits-all approach. Whether to outsource, what to outsource and when to outsource will depend on factors like timelines, culture and desired outcomes.

That last factor is one of the most important—before you decide to outsource, you need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of your team and the goals you hope to achieve. Your strategy should then look to tactically capitalize on those strengths and offset any key weaknesses or deficiencies with hiring, training or outsourcing. As you evaluate different options, start by asking yourself a simple question: Why are you considering outsourcing? The reasons matter, and once you understand them, you'll be better situated to find the right long-term solutions for your firm.

If you're looking to outsource simply because you think it will save you money, you should understand that won't necessarily happen. Often firms do save money by outsourcing, but entering into an effective outsourcing relationship usually requires an initial commitment and saving money depends on the trade-offs a firm is willing to make. More often, effective outsourcing allows firms to spend money more efficiently by minimizing disruptions and headaches, increasing stability and consistency, streamlining routine maintenance and administrative tasks and providing scalability in staffing for workload management, special projects and specialty skill sets. When executed properly, outsourcing relationships reduce employee burnout and allow key staff members to focus on returning value to the business without increasing your technology budget.

The best strategy for most firms when tackling the outsourcing decision is to focus on determining what sorts of conditions either today or over the next couple years might make you lean on an outsourcer. Outsourcers are typically going to have a better ability to maintain skill sets, stay on top of new technologies and know how technologies succeed in different environments. With that expertise, you can better address the problems that are keeping your firm from offering efficient service today or are likely to present hurdles down the road.

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To Outsource or Not to Outsource?

Once you know what you're good at, the question still remains: When should you outsource? Outsourcing is a great way to temporarily or permanently offset major challenges. Outsourcing makes a lot of sense when you have to make a change quickly, when you're facing a major staff disruption or deficiency or when your in-house staff lacks the necessary expertise or capacity to handle a new or priority project.

A few common scenarios that lead firms to consider outsourcing are a sudden loss of multiple key IT team members, an aging technology workforce looking at retirement horizons or an ineffective IT management team. The costs of trying to quickly re-staff and train people can be prohibitive, and finding the right fit can be very time-consuming. Short-term or permanent staff augmentation by partnering with a competent outsourcer can bring quick, effective relief to your firm (and your remaining team) to ensure that you don't fall behind on critical projects and maintenance work. It's been a highly competitive market for qualified IT professionals for more than two decades. Retaining top talent is a significant challenge, and the market shows no signs of changing in favor of employers. Competent outsourcers are better prepared to get up to speed more quickly and offer a great depth of skill sets in their technical team, making it easier to replace in-house talent for both temporary and long-term needs when you lose your best staff.

Temporary outsourcing can also lead to more permanent outsourcing over time. Many firms that are faced with large-scale implementations of new technology realize that outsourcing can offer critical help and capacity during the transition phase, when their internal teams are struggling to roll out new systems and platforms while supporting the existing systems. Once the firm realizes the benefits of outsourcing some of these routine or maintenance functions, a permanent change often becomes more appealing. Effective outsourcing is about making your money go further by allocating resources more efficiently, whether that's through partial temporary outsourcing of certain functions or permanently outsourcing all your IT operations.

Perhaps most importantly, outsourcing doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing proposition. While some firms choose to dive in and outsource their entire IT department from the outset, others find great success with hybrid approaches that allow key stakeholders to get comfortable with the idea of outsourcing by starting with low-level, routine functions, such as after-hours or overflow tech support, facilities operations, printer maintenance or records. These functions require lower levels of skill and experience, and while a failed implementation would be disruptive, outsourcing such functions generally presents much less risk. As the firm acclimates to outsourcing and begins to see a return on the investment, exploring the outsourcing of additional functions becomes less daunting and less risky. Firms that execute well on their outsourcing strategy allow their staff to focus on higher-priority tasks that add immediate value to the business rather than burning out key personnel with overtime, routine maintenance work and projects well beyond their skill set.

While it's rare to find a firm that wouldn't benefit from some outsourcing, there are circumstances that might encourage you to think twice before looking outside. In order for outsourcing to succeed, the firm has to be committed to the strategy, manage the transition (and the vendors) appropriately and get the end-user community and current team on board. If you have a small office where there may be animosity to displacing or replacing long-term staff or if your employees are allowed to go directly to redeployed team members rather than use the outsourced service, outsourcing likely won't be cost-effective. Likewise, if you operate in a very niche market, you might need to find outsourcers who also specialize in that niche or locality so they're well informed on customs, experiences and expectations.

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The Takeaway

Effective outsourcing is about improving the value of your spend. While long-term strategic initiatives can be met with an effective plan to transition to outsourced service providers, be mindful of the status quo. If customers are well satisfied with your technology environment and service delivery capabilities, don't force change. On the other hand, effectively planning your technology strategy requires the vision to look down the road, think ahead and anticipate the problems you might face and how you will solve them. Outsourcers can bring perspective, experience and know-how that your team may lack and can help you avoid mistakes or challenges experienced by other organizations.

It's rare that a firm has no opportunity to benefit from the increased efficiency an outsourcer can deliver. Focus your team on continuing to deliver on your strengths, and look to good outsourcing organizations to efficiently and cost-effectively assist you with your weaknesses and routine maintenance and support.

Martin Catania is a partner and director of client relationship management for Keno Kozie's Help Desk Business Department and serves on the firm's Board of Directors. He focuses on managing client relationships, providing oversight to the firm and strategic direction for the Help Desk organization.