Upgrading a law department’s technology requires a significant investment of time, money, and resources. To be successful, it requires support from those implementing the system on a day-to-day basis and from those footing the bill. Setting the appropriate vision for them will assure this support.
Initially, keep the focus on how the proposed system will help the department achieve goals, meet requirements and add value, and then communicate these benefits to the executives as well as the department staff. The department’s business needs, process requirements and existing technology should drive technological solutions, not the other way around.
Up front, the decision makers may only see that a number of costs are associated with implementing the new technology, including licensing, hosting, implementation, integration, and customization. Therefore, it is critical to encourage them to take a longer-term view of the cost analysis, as the projected gains will increase as the system matures, and to consider both the hard and soft savings of the project.
It is at this point that practices legal technology sales professionals will inquire as to whether a financing solution would be helpful to the firm as an alternative to using working capital or bank credit lines. Further, they will take it a step further to demonstrate how a creative financing payment structure most completely aligns the customer payment to the ROI of the technology project. Dimension has a wide arsenal of marketing tools to help support your implementation of proactive customer financing engagement. Get in touch with us at your convenience to learn more about the programs and best practices for successful utilization.
