BPM Computer software – Business Process Management Software For Lawyers

As the world struggles to rebound from the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), the requirement for new generation BPM software systems increases in tandem. Firms are attempting to reap the benefits of new opportunities while simultaneously being forced to do more with less, for fear the rebound is simply not yet secure. To complicate things a little bit more, customers are more demanding than previously – willing to place their business venture elsewhere if firms cannot provide consistent, high-quality service without raising their rates. Coping with these challenges can be a constant struggle for today’s legal firms.
One attractive option for minimizing costs and upholding consistency is business process automation. At the core level, an institution is really made up of a set of processes along with the individuals who apply them. In most cases, how well an organization applies key processes plays a deciding role in determining its success. Put simply, it is not only what you do that determines success, but how you do it.
By automating even portions of a process, a firm can keep maintaining the consistency of its output while lowering or eliminating certain overhead costs. Regrettably, the automation options historically available have not been designed to meet the particular needs of legal firms and have suffered two significant problems: expense and limited performance.
For many companies, the expenses associated with implementing a Business Process management solution are prohibitive. While studies have shown that automation permits companies to accomplish a greater amount of high quality work for less effort – and generating a significant return on investment – the initial capital investment often needed put many solutions outside of the reach of all but the largest firms. In the end these businesses simply can’t afford the very thing they cannot afford to be without. Nevertheless, even those lucky few firms able to afford the expenditures often found that returns didn’t come as easily as they would’ve liked.
The firms that could afford automation solutions frequently discovered them to be limited in both their capabilities and their long development cycles. For example, imagine a Practice Manager purchasing a software solution to automate the matter intake process. The new application would most likely be created or customized by development staff. This type of work was carried out using conventional development methods and by writing code – a laborious procedure. Over time, application requirements typically change, resulting in a lot more code being written. Throughout the adjustment period, the program specifications may change, yet again resulting in even more development. This may occur over and over again.
In the end, managers will often end up implementing systems no longer meeting the firm’s needs for no other reason than to end the development cycle. Regretably, this often causes managers to alter ways to comply with system limitations rather than modifying the program to work as preferred. It does not have to be that difficult.
In 2002, the marketplace began to alter. In that year, Microsoft released version 1.0 of the .NET Framework. This new breed of technology laid the groundwork for a suite of new developer offerings from Microsoft that would allow independent Software vendors to create robust, yet cost-effective workflow solutions. With the launch of the .NET Framework it was expected that workflow automation would almost certainly be within reach of the masses.
Jumping to 2011, Microsoft’s workflow technologies have improved significantly since the initial release of the .NET Framework. The additions of Windows Workflow Foundation (WF), Windows Communication Foundation (WFC), and, most recently, Windows Server AppFabric to Microsoft’s suite of workflow technologies has led a brand new generation of workflow and BPM Software solutions. These new solutions are incredibly agile, and a number of them are developed solely with the small to medium-sized firms in mind.
As firms of all sizes move away from the mindset of surviving the GFC to that of post-recession growth, workflow automation will become even more essential and may even be the distinguishing factor between those businesses that thrive and those that fight to remain alive.