In this series of blogs, we continue to explore the “Top 5 Benefits of ELM” with
Part Five of the Five-Part Series  – Applying ELM Benefits to Support Business Growth

ELM Systems provide an unrivaled vision of the entire operation and deliver intelligent insights to energize business growth opportunities.

The goal of global corporations, regardless of market or economic landscape, is to increase profitability while stimulating superior client satisfaction. When these two elements come together, business growth becomes more than possible; it thrives! We’ve explored the other benefits derived from leveraging an Enterprise Legal Management (ELM) system, so this last benefit is the culmination of everything that came before. When businesses seek to scale their operations or grow, the challenges that result are often overwhelming, leading to delays or an inability to take action. How does a Legal team drive action to better the entire business? History shows that the most effective way to overcome these challenges is to have more information at your fingertips. ELM systems’ capability to take disparate data flows and distill and analyze them into one stream of intelligent information is the key to success.

Legal has seen a dramatic shift into a more trusted, strategic business unit, often with a seat at the boardroom table. The time is right for Legal to spearhead transformational change and enable business growth and scalability through process improvements, team efficiencies, and cost savings. These are the hallmarks of an advanced, innovative ELM system. The goal is to provide the business with real-time insights to elevate the entire operation lifecycle, not just Legal’s. That is why we’ll explore how the previous benefits from Enterprise Legal Management (ELM) systems build up to deliver the most valuable opportunity to drive business growth.

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ELM Solution Benefit #5: Supporting Business Growth

Benefit #1 – Improved efficiency enables business growth

Legal teams feel pressure to shoulder increased responsibilities while maintaining their legal tasks. Supporting their global corporation creates a need to split focus between their core strength of practicing law and their new functions, such as responsibilities for human resources, business strategy, corporate sustainability, etc. The increased workload demands more sophisticated and innovative technologies to keep pace. ELM offers unique benefits to provide automation opportunities to increase processing efficiency and team efficiency.

Business growth often requires a complete overhaul of how a company applies its people, money, and technology resources. It also requires a new mindset to sustain all upcoming business initiatives. When technology can deliver a complete picture on one dashboard, businesses have a collaborative position to receive insights that allow for taking on responsibilities without increasing staff. ELM systems provide a wealth of data analysis that allows Legal to track bottlenecks in the system, adjust processes for greater proficiency, and identify opportunities for greater cost savings. Being able to reassign recovered resources to high-value tasks energizes the ability to scale and grow a business for years to come.

NINJA TIP: Ascent ELM is designed to increase efficiency through process automation and constant resource tracking. Predictable growth is only sustainable when results can be forecasted and resources are budgeted. ELM enables Legal to manage these items effectively, enabling additional business growth for years to come.

 

Benefit #2 – Data transparency informs business growth

lm-data-transparency-informs-business-growthBusiness data transparency leads to eliminating data silos that hinder the ability to leverage existing data to make moves that enable future growth. To enable informed decision-making, corporations need and create more data, but this creates a double-edged sword. With more information, a complete picture can be created and sorted into actionable insights. However, this wealth of data creates an ever-increasing volume of data points that must be collected and analyzed.

Business data transparency is only useful if the system delivers its analyzed insights when and where they present the most business value. Helping corporations have a more holistic view of their operations is the backbone upon which ELM systems are built. Increased visibility reduces delays in getting answers which produces more timely results.

Ninja Tip: Ascent ELM’s data analytics helps provide forecasts on expected outcomes. Employing the breadth of business data analytics with an ELM system, users can confidently get immediate answers that drive business growth. This level of ELM data transparency delivers an elevated perspective on business operations, allowing Legal teams to holistically manage activities that affect business success.

 

Benefit #3 – Cost savings fund business growth

In the current age of global business, it’s more critical than ever for a corporation to remain as cost-conscious as possible. In the coming economic downturn that industry experts forecast, ELM’s cost-sensitive toolset could prove to be a saving factor for some businesses while allowing others to grow. With tools in place to take advantage of saving opportunities, the chances for growth are open.

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Ascent ELM has proven its ability to reduce corporate legal department expenses and business fees in many areas, regardless of the global location or the markets they serve. These savings are mostly a result of outside counsel consolidation, legal fee negotiations, early payment discounts, and legal team production optimization. Many of these savings opportunities span the entire business, while others concentrate on Legal functions.

Ascent ELM provides an up-front, all-in cost to avoid extra fees and expenses. Below is a visual chart for a hypothetical client, showing what’s included with Ascent ELM, but not with many other competitive solutions. The client cost savings are significant. Lifetime cost predictability allows business and Legal teams to budget and forecast to provide measured expectations that identify projects needing funds. With the ELM savings in place, other initiatives that open business growth, scalability, and new markets become possible.

Ninja Tip: doeLEGAL provides the Ascent ELM system with upfront and predictable costs. Using evidence of cost savings from other business cases makes it reasonable to conclude that other businesses with similar business markets can gain similar benefits with the right provider supporting their efforts. Another important factor to consider is having knowledgeable ELM experts in your corner, ready to apply their expertise to your system. doeLEGAL has numerous Ascent ELM clients sharing their cost-saving results. Download client stories.

 

Benefit #4 – Improved resource allocation sustains business growth

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Resource allocation is one ELM benefit that improves efficiency and lowers costs. “putting the right people, technology, and money in the best place to make things work well” enables teams to save time and money while reducing unnecessary delays in taking action.

When all business resource components work together, the “perfect mix” allows the business to compete better in any market. This allows companies to seek growth areas or scale to meet evolving market demands. Once the resources are in line with the proper allocation, Legal can contribute more to the bottom line or fund more opportunities to improve.

Ninja Tip: Saving money and then reallocating it toward other business needs is an exceptional benefit of ELM that helps fund other initiatives and penetration into new markets. Business growth and scaling to meet additional demands require resources to compete successfully. ELM’s ability to improve resource usage delivers the funding.

Conclusion

elm-supports-business-growthIn this series of blogs, we’ve covered the top five benefits of ELM and what each offers to modern business teams. While each offers a compelling argument to add this advanced technology to your tool stack, the benefits demonstrate proof that they provide a combined benefit that shows how Ascent ELM systems will grow with the business.

You can also request a demo when you’re ready to move forward.

 

#doelegal #questel #legalops #legaltechsolutions #elm #ebilling


About doeLEGAL
doeLEGAL, a Questel Company, is the enterprise-level provider of legal technology solutions and elevated support that gives corporate legal departments and law firms anytime, anywhere control over cases and costs to inform decision-making and drive more successful outcomes. Acting as their business partner, doeLEGAL provides clients valuable insights that reduce legal costs by as much as 50% and increase legal performance by up to 65%. Part of the growing portfolio of Questel companies, doeLEGAL differentiates itself as a leader in global legal tech solutions by providing “Smart data, intelligently delivered.” Visit www.doelegal.com for information on advanced Enterprise Legal Management and eDiscovery services and technology.

About Questel
Questel’s mission is to facilitate the development of innovation in an efficient, secure, and sustainable way. Questel is a true end-to-end intellectual property solutions provider to more than 20,000 clients and one million users across 30 countries. We offer a comprehensive software suite for searching, analyzing, and managing inventions and IP assets. The Questel group also provides services throughout the IP lifecycle, including prior art searches, international filing, translation, and renewals. These solutions, when combined with our IP cost management platform, deliver clients an average savings of 30-60% across the entire prosecution budget.