This episode I caught up with Sheila Gormley Co-founder and Exec VP Legal Division at Repstor.
Repstor says it transforms and simplifies Microsoft 365 Information Management, and specialises in optimising Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams productivity and information control for businesses worldwide. It aims to harness the investment companies have already made in these platforms, and offers them substantial efficiency gains.
But Sheila recalls being at a conference about three years ago, where there was incredible reticence among law firms present to move to the cloud. She came away from that session feeling very deflated that the transition to the cloud it was happening so slowly.
Fast forward three years, and OMG! what a difference. It is now a top priority for firms, accelerated by the pandemic. Shelia says that notwithstanding some of the challenges you get around client consent within a law firm environment, she is seeing a huge shift from where people are looking to transition from their legacy platforms onto cloud tech and recognising the benefits of that.
The other key trend Repstor see is consolidation. More and more firms are looking to see how they can leverage the Microsoft platform to deliver that. She describes the Microsoft platform, M365, as having the capability, the security, the scalability, and the functionality, but what it doesn’t have out of the box is matter centricity, and the legal know-how, the legal ways of working. And that’s what Repstor tries to bring on top of the platform.
She feels the pandemic has been the biggest accelerator for change. Affordable cloud technology presents a huge opportunity in the market. People are realigning budgets that may have been allocated to property or real estate into their IT budget. Recognising that they need to adopt cloud technology.
The ability to deliver services remotely, to deliver software remotely, without having to be physically on premises with clients has worked incredibly well for Repstor.
And they see that trend continuing. Sheila thinks we’re at the inflection point where themselves, other companies, clients, everybody has seen that it can work and it can work effectively and efficiently.
And while there’s always going to be that place for human interaction, it’s part of our DNA, it’s part of who we are, that we long for that. But, from a technology point of view, we can do a huge amount over the web.
Tune in to hear more of what Sheila had to say.