Cloud migration is rapidly building momentum in the legal industry, with more and more firms prioritizing digital transformation to meet their clients’ growing expectations. However, finding a cloud-based solution capable of keeping up with evolving markets can be difficult, frustrating many firm leaders and causing them to give up on their migration strategies.
Thankfully, Intapp — which provides cloud software solutions purpose-built for professional services firms — continually improves its cloud-based products to ensure that they’re future-proof. Firms can adopt these solutions knowing that their needs and their clients’ expectations will be met, now and in the years to come.
“We released our first cloud solution back in 2017,” said Shalaka Natu, Director of Product Management for Intapp Risk & Compliance. “Since then, we’ve released more than 20 versions on cloud. … We made this level of investment because we truly believe our clients will eventually move to cloud. It’s not a question of if, but when.”
During our latest Intapp Risk & Compliance webinar, “Partner Perspectives on Navigating the Cloud Migration Journey,” representatives from Intapp and our Intapp Certified Implementation Partners network spoke about best practices for developing a digital transformation plan, and how Intapp technology can help ease your migration to the cloud.
“Our ultimate goal is to provide a best-in-class experience to our clients,” said Natu. “[We leverage] cloud technology so that we can innovate quarterly and deliver modern solutions.”
To provide a modern experience for your firm’s teams, Intapp hosts all Intapp products on a scalable and secure cloud platform, allowing you to easily adapt to changes in usage patterns, data volume, traffic, and complexity. Intapp also includes essential advanced capabilities:
- Connected firm technology — Connect and manage your people, processes, and data via a single source of truth to improve efficiency and compliance.
- AI capabilities — Unify disparate data sources, surface key insights, manage risks, and automate processes.
- Analytics and reporting — Leverage data as well as AI- and data-driven insights to create clear, coherent reports.
- External forms — Securely collect information from external contacts via this exclusive cloud offering.
Migrating to the cloud will also ultimately help your firm save money: You’ll no longer have to worry about costs associated with manually updating or maintaining on-premises systems, as your software will automatically update in the cloud.
“Moving to the cloud is effectively your last upgrade,” explained Jeff Armbrecht, Vice President at InflectionIT.
Armbrecht and other panelists — including Curtis Russell, COO at Aurora North; Eric Mosca, Director at InOutsource; and Samantha Kobak, Senior Manager of Solutions Engineering at Intapp — shared their own success stories with helping clients implement Intapp cloud products. Natu also referenced how Goulston & Storrs witnessed a 100% adoption rate after implementing Intapp Risk & Compliance, and generated an average of 450 interactive conflicts reports per month.
When planning your firm’s own migration, your firm should first chart out a clear roadmap to ensure the journey to the cloud will be a success. James Edwards, Client Experience Director for Intapp Risk & Compliance at Intapp, highlighted four key milestones to include in your migration plan:
- Assessment — Have your potential cloud provider conduct a cloud readiness assessment to determine the best way to migrate your data. For example, Kobak and her team first examine the complexity of a firm’s on-premises environment, then work with clients and implementation experts to determine whether to migrate their data all at once or take a phased approach. “This will set up all parties with the best go-forward plan,” she explained.
- Version upgrade — Ensure your on-premises platform is fully updated so that updated features and capabilities will easily transfer to the cloud.
- Query integration to data sets — Before moving to the cloud, eliminate the SQL-based connection and allow for an easier way to access information, such as drop-downs menus. This will help ensure your data is more accurate and easier to migrate.
- Virtual table conversion — If you need to reference data that doesn’t have a pre-built storage place, use virtual tables. The data sets can then reference the data in the virtual tables.