DNA - A new breed of PMS

Axxia dna* allows law firms of any size to have their cake and eat it: every bit of mainstream PMS functionality together with business process management and workflow control, all in one unified system. It is indeed a new breed.

The legal technology market is in a constant state of flux. We see technology rush to the forefront, embrace its 15 minutes of fame, only to quietly fade into the shadows of the latest and greatest must have. One can suppose it was the Practice Management System (PMS) that was the first real "must have" for a law firm, a complete solution encompassing the likes of case management (CM), financial management and reporting (FM) and even client relationship management (CRM).

But the PMS was challenged by the onslaught of so called "Best of Breed" systems providing greater functionality in specific product areas. As an example, there is no denying that the leading document management suppliers such as Interwoven and Open Text/ Hummingbird have revolutionised the way a firm approaches the management of client and matters, responsible for delivering document life-cycle management, from inception to archiving and destruction; allowing firms to work in a matter centric, collaborative environment assured of compliance and security. The downside of the DM base matter centric systems was the lack of workflow and hence no capability to improve efficiency within the firm. In addition the best of breed systems take a lot of resource to implement and manage.

In response the major PMS suppliers have two options - retreat into ever greater niche specialisms, such as analytics or document automation, or provide the functionality of the myriad best of breed providers. It could be argued that the former option is almost the easy one, however hardly takes a myopic view of the world and surely leads to marginalisation in an ever consolidating market.  The latter can only be pursued by those suppliers that have a long term commitment to the legal market and the money in the bank to make a serious investment in development to meet the best of breed players head on.

For firms that have already made some investment in best of breed systems, any emerging PMS requirements must be sympathetic to current commitments and working practices, however there is now the opportunity for small to medium firms to invest in an all encompassing true practice wide management system.
Stuart Holden Axxia’s managing director, comments “The PMS market really is at a turning point. We are seeing firms question the large investments made into single solution area systems and they are now looking to understand how the new PMS can deliver the vast majority of a firm’s requirements. Axxia dna* clients are investing in a system that delivers a cohesive enterprise system with effective management reporting and BPM.”

Published on: 26-07-2007