Briefing special report: Cloud calling
reports|November 2020Does a rapid increase in homeworking mean it's time to transform telephony?
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INSIDE
If remote working is here to stay, is it time for law firms to cut loose the handset and unite all their comms and collaboration in the cloud?
WHAT'S ALL THIS?
Law firms rapidly accelerated their implementation of collaboration tools from March 2020 – for very obvious reasons. Daily channelised chat and video meets are now as common as congregating in the office kitchen once was. The vibe might not be quite the same, but even for those with a very solid preference for working from home, the ability to see colleagues for certain interactions remains indispensable. Microsoft Teams has quickly established itself as a law firm favourite. However, while appetite for video has soared this year, what has become of connecting on the phone? In handling the first lockdown quite a lot of firms simply piped office lines out to people’s mobiles – although some were also busily rolling out those unified comms. We can clearly see that law firm telephony is a technology ripe for transformation.
Comms in 2021 – time for Teams
Half of law firm leaders report that Microsoft Teams is the dominant tool their firms have been using for internal communication and collaboration while homeworking throughout the pandemic.
Phone work to do?
Business leaders have not found the handling of phone calls has had a very significant impact on WFH performance or productivity, but around two-fifths say there have been a few challenges, for example with transferring calls to colleagues.
Cloud calling?
Almost nine in 10 law firm leaders are either actively considering moving telephony to the cloud, have already done so, or have selected a provider to help them on that journey. More than a fifth have already done so using Microsoft Teams as the platform.
