Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/16612
forced to cobble together and manage a host of disparate point systems. Ideally, this platform should offer a robust toolset to manage configuration changes in-house and to further extend the value of the platform through custom application development. There are many business and end user benefits to be derived from a technology platform implemented to consolidate a broad portfolio of legal systems. In this article, we focus on the IT benefits of this approach, including reducing the total cost of ownership of these systems and allowing the IT groups that support the legal function to deliver a much higher level of support to their internal customers. To an IT department, this is gold at a time when companies are challenged more than ever to manage costs and “do more with less.” In addition, law departments looking for more innovative ways to run their businesses in order to remain competitive, especially in a difficult market, should take note of the Harvard Business Review article by Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson, “Investing in the IT That Makes a Competitive Difference,” which recommends a three-step strategy, with the first being: “Deploy a consistent technology platform, rather than stitching together a jumble of legacy systems.” IT CHALLENGES Over the past 10 to 15 years, the legal technology landscape has exploded with a vast assortment of systems designed to help law departments run their businesses and to enable legal staff to perform the day-to-day functions of their jobs. With the variety of systems now available to support such things as time and billing management, e-discovery, document retention, e-billing, project management, docket and calendaring, it’s not unusual for a department’s technology portfolio to include dozens of different systems. While each of these point systems provides unique value and benefit to the legal function, this system proliferation has caused many challenges for the IT groups tasked with supporting it. HIGH TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP Calculating the total cost of ownership (TCO) of IT systems takes into account all of the upfront (direct/hard) costs of acquiring the technology, as well as the ongoing operational (indirect/ soft) costs. The latter includes costs for things such as training, administration, maintenance and scalability, which can be quite high. In fact, according to a recent Oracle white paper (“Benefits of Application Rationalization: Reduce Costs and Improve Service with a Systematic Approach”), “In most organizations, the cost for operating and managing applications makes up from 75 to 80 percent of the budget.” Following are just a couple of examples that illustrate why the ongoing operational costs of a portfolio of disparate systems can be incredibly high. • Inefficient Administration Each point system, often even if from the same vendor, has its own unique administration and security process and interface. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, for end users’ security permissions to reach across systems, causing them to have to log into each system separately, or for IT to implement and maintain single sign-on (SSO) technology across all systems, which can be quite complex. In addition, due to having separate administration interfaces for each system, user management is extremely www.iltanet.org Infrastructure Technologies 37