Professional services have traditionally been seen as hands-on work learned mostly through experience. For years, technology wasn’t a big part of the equation. But that’s no longer true.
Now, technology in professional services is changing the game. Instead of just measuring effort, businesses focus on results. Using technology to automate tasks is one of the first ways firms boost efficiency and cut costs.
However, there can be hang-ups when a professional service provider offers a more hands-on service, where automation isn’t so much of an option.
That, combined with the fact that many professional services firms can be split into two pretty distinct parts – outward-facing and internal – makes automation tricky to implement. Having said that, there are plenty of other ways that technology can benefit professional service firms and improve their operations. One means of doing so is to make a digital transformation.
Technology in Professional Services Meets Efficiency
Any shift that goes from an analog-based system to a digital one is considered a digital transformation – something that has been taking place more and more frequently over the past 20 years. The cloud has played a big role in this process – consider how it helps with time and resource management, productivity, collaboration, and archiving information. Plus, technology in professional services adds efficiency through digital services.
Consider how the following establishments have begun to take advantage of technology to accomplish this.
Medical Practices
Due to mandated requirements, medical practices have seen some considerable IT improvements for the better part of a decade. The results of these improvements have been shown in a few studies. One from 2018 indicated that 60 percent of medical practices that had upgraded their information technology would describe their experience as a positive one, while 23.5 percent described their experience as positive-to-mixed. A relatively tiny eight percent found their technology implementation to be negative.
The healthcare industry requires participation at every level for technology to work well. This leads to benefits like electronic health records, cost cuts, and better patient care.
Legal Services
Law firms and legal representatives in general are often steeped in tradition. As one of the oldest professions, many lawyers view established standards as sacred. It’s no surprise the profession has barely changed, but technology still plays a role.
Solutions like document management, mobile device management, and other solutions that enable mobility and remote access have proven extremely useful to the legal representative.
Really, any professional services firm that adopts improved technologies is doing so for one underlying reason – to allow them to do whatever it is they do that much more effectively. Would you like to learn more about how technology can be a benefit to you?
