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How To Streamline Your Law Firm & Achieve Peak Performance

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | How To Streamline Your Law Firm & Achieve Peak PerformanceLaw firms can be fast paced, incredibly challenging places to work and can also be chaotic.

There are a lot of moving parts in a law firm. High volumes of files are constantly floating around, there are many clients that need to be attended to, court dates and legal proceedings are time consuming and at some point the business needs to be managed including financial and marketing management. Needless to say, law firms take a lot of effort to manage them effectively.

A periodic review of ways to streamline your law firm operations can lead to a significant reduction in the chaos. Below you will find a few tips to help get you started.

Utilize Technology

Technology is a huge factor in almost every industry across the globe.

The benefits of heavily utilizing technology cannot be understated for law firms. Well known law firms are frequently the targets of malicious hackers, so the latest state-of-the-art technology is no longer optional, but essential. Effective cybersecurity can safeguard sensitive client data, and make sure that the legal process is never compromised at your firm.

Additionally, cloud storage means all the dreaded paperwork that can litter a law firm never gets misplaced, damaged, lost, or stolen. Ultimately, technology helps make the work less manual. Everything is moving online into shared spaces for easier access yet shielded by encrypted servers and other password locked cyberspaces.

Utilizing software that makes case management more efficient keeps your staff smaller and costs lower. It helps your team focus on the important legal work and not be bogged down in monotonous legal administration.

Consult or Outsource to Expert Marketers

Technology and efficient internal operations also play a crucial role in marketing your law firm.

Marketing can get overwhelming, particularly if your law firm is not well-versed in digital marketing strategies. You can take your broad ideas and filter them through some expert consultants for well-polished results. You guarantee that your online advertising will not distract your internal team and will be the most effective by outsourcing your marketing.

For example, Legal Back Office provides highly regarded law firm management consultancy in marketing, accounting and with key law firm operational areas like intake, billing and case management processes. They can partner with you to define your marketing needs, generating new cases and helping you to make your brand identity as impactful as possible. Legal Back Office is in it for the long haul, drafting technical and strategic solutions for you as long as you need them. They offer a variety of services beyond marketing, making them a key business partner for your law firm.

Limit/Eliminate Time Wasting Practices

Perhaps more than any other business, those dealing in law face constant factors that drain their use of time such as holding too many internal meetings, being dependent on paper client files and having outdated processes requiring more steps than are necessary.

A high volume of and poorly run meetings are a consistent culprit in filling your time. Business Insider notes that people should avoid eliminating them entirely and instead make them more productive. Facilitate meaningful discussions and ensure everyone has the time to raise important issues. Communication in a law firm is vital, but only when every word spoken truly counts for something in a dedicated context. Make your meetings internally count so the real focus can be on case work and meetings with clients.

If your law firm is still overly dependent on a physical client file, this is an area of “low hanging fruit” that when transitioned to a digital process will save your lawyers and staff a significant amount of time. Intake process can also be overly burdened by steps that truly are required to get a client retained by your law firm.

If you feel like your firm could use some tune ups in your processes, working with a law firm consultant like Legal Back Office can help you identify where time is being wasted, develop recommendations for change and even implement those changes. When you are focused on doing client work, attending to business best practices always falls to the bottom of the priority list. Working with Legal Back Office to implement efficiency changes can ensure that you will maximize the results you are able to achieve and to reach peak performance metrics for your firm.

Factors to Consider When Choosing Managed IT Services

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Managed IT Services|Factors to Consider When Choosing Managed IT ServicesTechnology is on the rise in every sector of the world, including the business sector. Technology demands for business have made it a necessity to have a department managing IT. Management of IT has today become a vital aspect of every business.

As a result, most businesses have opted to have an internal IT department to help manage the technical aspects of a business. However, some companies have opted to outsource IT management services from professional managed IT service providers. Being that technology is an integral part of business IT, it is essential to always choose a provider with high levels of skills that will provide you with excellent services. Settling on a provider is not easy because there are numerous managed IT service providers.

Here are some if the important factors that you should consider when choosing a managed IT service provider.

Security

With the high levels of cybercrime, security has become an important aspect of a business. However, ensuring a high-end securing can be difficult and costly. With that in mind, you must choose a service provider that does not just monitor your information system and infrastructure. But you must consider a company that can also offer strategic security plans.

With a rigid and reliable IT security, you can ensure all customer and employee data remain safe and secure. Reliable IT managed services ensure to encrypt your network to prevent people from accessing it not unless with permission. Network encryption also allows you to monitor any activity that is conducted on your network. This gives you a straightforward way to detect suspicious activities, giving you an opportunity to come up with an appropriate measure to counter it. With this, you can guarantee that you can minimize and prevent risks of cybersecurity threats from infecting your IT system and infrastructure.

Due to the nature of their work, IT support providers gain access to sensitive company information and private data. As a result, you should ensure the company has a high level of confidentiality. Or you can limit the extent of information they access to have some discretion. You should identify the initiatives the company will take to guarantee the confidentiality of your sensitive information and customer data.

Availability

One of the most essential factors to consider about manage IT companies is their service availability. The company should provide service and support 24/7/365. Quality IT managed services company will provide you with qualified IT personnel to take care of your IT needs on a shifting basis. IT service providers assure constant delivery of top-notch managed IT services through continuous and round the clock IT support.

Determining the availability of the company is crucial. This is because it will help you ascertain how proficient the IT service provider can be. 24/7/365 IT monitoring means that the company will be in a position to offer updates and provide technical support as quickly as possible. On top of this, the constant monitoring of systems also allows them to detect IT related issues in a timely manner before they became a major problem in the organization.

With early detection of problems, your provider will be able to quickly come up with solutions to the problems. This guarantees that your business can prevent worse system problems and IT disasters in the future.

The managed IT service provider you choose must be capable of addressing all your concerns. Apart from 24/7 system monitoring, the company should also provide a responsive service desk where your employees can be able to reach them for support, either through call, email or chat. This allows you staff to have a faster resolution to any IT challenge that they might face, such as problems logging in.


Scalability

You should always remember business growth when selecting an IT managed services provider. Your business demand today may not be as critical to what your business will have in a few months or years. That is why it is important to hire a service provider that understands your ever-changing business needs.

Reliable and experienced IT managed service providers offer scalable services. This means that their IT services will adapt to all the technical needs of your business. For instance, if the number of employees in your organization increases by a large number, say from 3000 to 4500, the IT service provider should be able to provide you with enough skilled personnel to provide quick and timely resolutions to prevent a decrease in productivity. This allows the It service providers to meet all your IT requirements smoothly and effectively. Through this, you can ensure that your IT system and infrastructure will be able to adapt to the changes as a result of business growth.

Experience and expertise

It is imperative to consider the experience and skill of the company. Should the personnel have the right skills, knowledge and expertise? The IT service company should have a team of professionals in IT who are certified to offer these services, thereby preventing amateur companies from experimenting with your IT infrastructure. Reliable service providers are ones that have successfully handled a number of clients from different industries.

Every industry is unique. Similarly, every organization and company has its own way of handling day to day operations. Consequently, every business has varying and different IT requirements. As a result, you must choose a provider with a proven reputation and experience of handling IT needs of a diverse set of clients. This shows the company can offer unique IT services that your system needs.

Additionally, you should choose a company with the ability to provide cloud back up and data recovery services. Generally, the company should be able to provide solutions to any problems with your network and computers. If you hire a company that does not offer full IT support, then you will have to incur additional costs of hiring a new company or losses from unsatisfied customers or clients.

Conclusion

Outsourcing managed IT services allow you to focus on other vital needs of your business. With the best IT service, you can ensure that your network is secure and stable. This allows you to maintain smooth business operations. You need to ensure you only outsource services from a well proven and reliable company.

Want To Outsource? Here’s How You Could Do It!

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When it comes to your business, you push it as hard as possible to do well and make a profit. You’re working early mornings and late nights and the days seem to run into each other without stopping. While this is wonderful, and you can see the dollar signs rolling as the profits come in, the better you are the more in demand you are – and this means more work to keep up with.

Outsourcing pieces of your business to others to lighten the load from you isn’t a bad idea to combat that extra workload. Taking the right approach to outsourcing your marketing team or your invoicing to an accounting service is important. You need to be able to trust the people you’re handing a piece of your business to, and so it’s important that you know the advantages of outsourcing and why you should do it.

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Want To Outsource? Here's How You Could Do It!

Advantages of Outsourcing

Outsourcing is going to help you to combat the growth of your business. You want to be able to manage and control your business growth so that it goes in the way you hope it goes. You want to ensure that the time is right for your outsourcing, and if you know that it’s going to lower your costs and regain your focus properly, you’re going to do very well. On top of this, you could use outsourcing to develop your talent. A knowledgeable workforce is going to boost your bottom line and this will lead to even further growth. Now that you know the advantages of outsourcing with your business, let’s look at a few ways you could do it!

  • Know what to outsource. Before you do anything, you need to know what you should outsource. Look at your business functions and choose where you are weakest. If your social media marketing could use a boost, you know that choosing the right agency is the way to go. The same can be said for your IT, accounting and even your administrative tasks. You can check with your employees and your profit bottom line to know whether you need to outsource a function in your business.
  • Time it right. Sometimes, you can jump the gun and outsource too soon. You need to look at your long and short term needs and if you need help in the short term to help the long-term goals of yours, you’re going to do well. Once you have done this, communicate with your employees so that you can time this exactly right.
  • Cut ties gracefully. If you start outsourcing with an external company, you are more than within your right to cancel any agreements you have with them. No one enjoys firing a company, but you have to find the right provider to work with.
  • Communicate with your team. If you plan to outsource at all, you should consider talking to your team first. They will be able to tell you what they need and you can then decide whether to go ahead or to go another way. Communication is key and this will help you to get what you need for your business.

What Are The Benefits Of 3D Printing?

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | What Are The Benefits Of 3D Printing?

These days, more businesses across a huge assortment of industries are embracing the process of 3D printing. This is because of the many different advantages that it possesses. With that being said, in this blog post, we are going to explore all of the benefits in further depth to help you get a better understanding.

3D printing is rapid

There is only one place to begin when it comes to the benefits that are associated with 3D printing, and this is the fact that it is rapid. Rapid prototyping provides you with the ability to design, test, and manufactured a customized part in a small amount of time. Plus, if required, you can modify the design without the speed of the manufacturing process being adversely impacted.

Great flexibility

Not only does 3D printing deliver rapid speed, but it is also incredibly flexible as well. You can create virtually anything with a 3D printer. On the flip side, if you were to use a traditional manufacturing process, every new part of every change within a part design would demand a new jig, die, mould, or tool to be manufactured for the creation of the new part.

Sustainability

In addition to the points so far, with 3D printing, you do not need to outsource as many parts for outsourcing. This means that the environmental impact is lower because fewer things are being sent around the world and there is not any requirement for an energy-consuming factory to be maintained.

Reduce risk

By switching to 3D printing, you are also going to be able to lower the risk involved with the manufacturing process as well. This is because product designers are going to be able to verify product prototypes before they begin making significant investments in manufacturing that can be disastrous.

High levels of quality

Aside from the benefits that have been discussed so far, you can also expect high levels of quality when it comes to 3D printing. Poor designs can arise through traditional approaches to manufacturing. However, the way that 3D printing works mean that the assembly is a step-by-step process, which ensures the design is improved and that you benefit from an exceptional level of quality.

You can reduce expenses with 3D printing

In addition to the suggestions that have been discussed so far, 3D printing is also great for those who are looking to lower their costs when it comes to production. 3D printing is deemed one of the most cost-efficient manufacturing options. Injection moulding and CNC machining, which are more traditional approaches, demand a big number of costly machines, and the labour expenses tend to be a lot higher as well. Therefore, you can expect to save a considerable amount of money by making the switch to 3D printing.

So there you have it: an insight into some of the different benefits that are associated with 3D printing. We hope that this has helped you to get a better understanding of why 3D printing is so beneficial and how you can make the most of it in your business.

How to Grow Your Dispensary Business

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | How to Grow Your Dispensary BusinessYou are reading this article because you are probably intrigued about what a dispensary SOP is, or you are trying to find a way to improve your current model. The only thing that matters is that you are taking the necessary initiative to get things done and ensure the future success of your business needs. If you are a beginner who isn’t quite certain about the world of dispensary SOP’s, then it is best to start by establishing its meaning. A dispensary SOP is a shortened name for Dispensary Standard Operating Procedures PDF which is the most significant document that is unique to each business because it sets out specific outlines, procedures, and regulations particularly in the cannabis industry. Even though it can be a complex document to formulate, it is the most effective document that you need to ensure that your business’ resources are managed adequately.

What Is A SOP? 

A well-thought-out and professional dispensary SOP will benefit you with acquiring your license but it is the main building block towards your success in dispensary marketing. A strong dispensary marketing strategy will elevate your cannabis business and ensure that it ranks highly because the dispensary SOP provides a step by step manual that guarantees an understanding of the core areas of the business that require standard operating procedures. This is why it is important to establish a dispensary SOP that your employees and management can understand.

What To Cover 

When establishing a dispensary SOP for a cannabis business, you ought to have a detailed assessment of how your business will be able to cover these areas.

Security

The potential for theft and other related illegal activities is high when dealing with large amounts of money. The types of security measures need to be considered alongside the state requirements.

Quality Assurance

Your dispensary SOP needs to detail how it will maneuver environmental, sanitation, and inspection factors. Adequate testing has to be conducted by any of the licensed cannabis testing facilities.

Packaging and Labeling

States have different laws regulating how cannabis products should be packaged and labeled, particularly where products could be exposed to the youth. Safeguarding measures are necessary for children.

Inventory Control

This is also known as “track and trace” in some states. Strict inventory management is a necessity to outline the procedures of handling and storage.

Storage

It is generally separated into the storing of records and cannabis products. Licenses and any required documents need to be stored in a secure place that will enable authorities to see them when requested.

Cash Handling

This needs to be addressed to avoid any potential fraud allegations. Strict practices are necessary for a dispensary SOP.

Making Your Business Known

Once you have compiled an efficient dispensary SOP that covers every area of your business including your founding values, vision, and mission the next thing that you need to concern yourself with is to devise a quality and innovative dispensary marketing strategy. The industry is highly competitive and with more countries relaxing their strict laws around the sale and purchase of cannabis it will become more saturated. This is why it is important to come up with a dispensary marketing plan that can adapt to the current digital age. The advertising laws in this industry are still strict and it makes it a challenge to advertise cannabis freely. Moreover, cannabis is still classified as a Class 1 drug, as a result, dispensary marketing is a major challenge. If your adverts are not being removed from advertising channels, they are too costly for most businesses to afford. As a result of these problems, most businesses have opted to use practical and less costly methods to improve their dispensary marketing challenges – direct mail, mass SMS, and email. However, mass SMS seems to be the most effective option of these three methods of advertising.

Word of Advice 

If you still feel like you don’t quite understand how dispensary SOP documents work or feel as though you might struggle coming up with a unique dispensary marketing campaign, then you can enlist the services of a company that will assist you to come up with great ideas to improve your business to be world-class standard and compete with industry giants.