Hyperautomation: Enabling the full potential for the legal field
POWER PLATFORM: MICROSOFT’S LOW-CODE HYPERAUTOMATION TOOLKIT
Amid the uncertainty of 2020, there were definitely moments where clarity kicked in. The pandemic challenged all of us to go digital, and this was no different for legal teams. Working remotely proved that connectivity, centralization and the use of technology have become an essential part of future-proof organizations. Moreover, the pressure to cut costs is at an all-time high due to economic uncertainty. This is where automation can play an important role, as it enables higher process efficiency and provides key insights into those processes, with cost reduction as a result.
So, how are all these factors actually shaping the legal field of tomorrow? More importantly, which tools can provide an answer to your challenges? We believe that the Microsoft Power Platform is the right tool for legal teams all around the world. This versatile group of products allows people without a technical background to build complex business solutions that require no use of code. These kind of platforms are the low-code automation tools that will be essential for legal innovation.
We will further elaborate on the Microsoft Power Platform in this article. Even more essential, we know that the use of automated solutions, productized legal services, and even legal chatbots, will increase. As a result, traditional legal teams will have to change to stay competitive. It has become abundantly clear that there is a need for a more agile, cost-effective and efficient way of working. Let’s see how we can make this possible by using the right low code toolings.
CHARGING UP TRADITIONAL LEGAL TEAMS
2020 has made one thing crystal clear: people and well-organized processes are the driving forces behind every successful organization. Our resilience played, and will continue to play, a crucial role in overcoming challenging times. While legal organisations depend on their human workforces more than ever, technology can act as a true enabler by augmenting workers’ capabilities, and by streamlining and digitally transforming mission critical processes. In this case, we believe process optimalisation, automation, and hyperautomation in particular, provide the answer.
There definitely is a need for a Hyperautomation toolkit (Figure 1) that can play a central and fundamental role within a legal organization. Such a toolkit provides a broad perspective on process automation: rather than simply replacing human workers by their digital counterparts (RPA), hyperautomation includes people in the workflow and even complements them with state-of-the-art technologies, such as AI and Process/Task Mining. It may not come as a surprise that the principle of this technology toolbox can be found in Gartner’s Top Strategic Technology Trends for the second year in a row.
Similar to how our resilience has been put to test, organizations had to overcome immobility and unresponsiveness as well. Traditional software and applications are often hard to update or modify, development is time consuming, and the total cost of ownership often exceeds the available budgets. Contradictory, COVID-19 accelerated digital transformation and organizations were forced to switch to a digital-first approach as quickly as possible. At the same time, budgets were limited due to economic uncertainty.
To overcome these challenges, implementing the most efficient tools is necessary. For instance, in the legal field, contract negotiation may migrate to platforms that enable faster communication, better collaboration and better access to data. Moreover, manual and repetitive tasks will undoubtedly disappear to make place for more valuable work. Maybe this is the right time to leave the traditional behind and look at a bright future?
EMBRACING THE FUTURE: THE LOW-CODE HYPERAUTOMATION ALTERNATIVE
Given the increased need for a Hyperautomation toolkit and the known limitations encountered with traditional software and application development, it is evident that it is time for a new kid on the block: low-code automation tools. These tools are described by the Columbia Business School in Forrester (2020) as follows:
“Low-code automation tools are software programs that require very little (or no) coding knowledge, with the ability to create enterprise-grade, high-fidelity applications.”
This up-and-coming business trend is a key priority for many organizations in 2021. Experimenting with low-code/no-code software to boost day-to-day productivity seems to inspire and trigger employees who have no former experience with coding. Low-code automation tools that enable this trend are evolving towards a one-stop-shop for process automation and offer a couple of advantages: speed, flexibility, scalability and state-of-the-art capabilities.
We are not surprised this technology stack is on the rise. Gartner predicts that over 50% of medium to large enterprises will have adopted such a platform as one of their strategic applications by 2023, which will progress to 65% by 2024. According to the Wall Street Journal, low-code platform adoption will even rise to 70% by 2025.
Important to realize is that Low-Code Process Automation is all about your business-critical processes. So, you do not only need a shiny front application, but also a technology that enables the automation and orchestration of the underlying process flows and is able to handle each individual case with human-system in the loop possibilities. Difficult to find such an all-inclusive low code platform?
Read on and discover the solution to your process problems.
MICROSOFT’S ALTERNATIVE: THE POWER PLATFORM
Microsoft’s alternative for a low-code automation toolkit is the Power Platform. The Power Platform is a very powerful toolbox that enables citizen developers to improve, accelerate, and automate business processes. It consists out of the following components:
- Power BI: Enables organizations to create reports, run their business in real time with live dashboards, and discover insights from data;
- Power Apps: Build custom applications fast in a rapid low-code application development environment;
- Power Automate: Automate and integrate business processes with RPA-capabilities;
- Power Virtual Agents: Build chatbots without having to train custom models. Chatbots created in Power Virtual Agents are available as a standalone web application or can be integrated within Microsoft Teams.
Individually, these components are already very sophisticated. No wonder they are highly regarded by Gartner. While Power BI is named a leader in Gartner’s 2020 Magic Quadrant for Analytics and BI Platforms, Power Apps is named a leader in the Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms. Power Automate, on the other hand, is named a visionary in the Magic Quadrant for Robotic Process Automation. Although it does not take a leading spot right now, we expect it will not take very long to shift to a pole position in this market as well.
Collectively, these four components enable true automation benefits. In fact, even though each component can be used and implemented as a standalone solution, it is better not to separate one from the others and use the full power of the platform. For example, a Power Application will probably use some sort of flow built with Power Automate at some point. It is the combination of the toolkit that truly maximizes business outcomes. Fortunately, the different platform components integrate seamlessly, and their capabilities continuously improve.
The Power Platform: opportunities for legal departments
As the capabilities of the Power Platform continuously increase, the legal cases to which to platform can provide an answer to increases as well.
Firstly, the Power Platform allows for Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM). Currently, contracts are often still managed as they have always been managed: stacks of paper stored in an archive with enormous spreadsheets containing certain datapoints. This approach makes it hard and time-consuming to retrieve and update contracts. At the same time, it is very difficult to have a clear view of your living contracts.
Thanks to the Power Platform, we can leave such problems behind. The Power Platform is the way-to-go if you are looking for a single place to:
- Create and manage contracts;
- Capture KPIs of your contracts intelligently with the help of Artificial Intelligence;
- Track changes of your contracts;
- Orchestrate the approval of your contracts;
- Negotiate contract details;
- Sign contracts securely;
- Get real-time insights in our contracts.
In this demo, you will get a clear view of this application works:
The second opportunity the Power Platform offers, is automated legal intake. The queries of the business’ operational branch should be handled in a structured matter, be filtered automatically and, if possible, be guided through existing FAQ’s. This improves the users experience and enables the legal department to focus on its core business instead of giving repetitive answers to generic questions.
A third possibility created by the Power Platform is the creation of a Legal Dashboard. A Legal Dashboard is a secure all-in-one database containing all relevant legal information in an intelligent, searchable manner. The use of such Dashboards allows legal departments to keep track of all operational, financial and risk-related aspects of their activities. For example, it will be easy to track the turnaround time for first-line advice, the active matters per legal counsel, budgetary aspects or non-compete or non-sollicitation clauses in your contracts. The possibilities are becoming more and more endless as we speak.
The Power Platform: opportunities for law firms
Law firms can of course make use of the relevant aspects of the Power Platform’s opportunities for legal departments, but additional possibilities make it ever so interesting for them to make the investment. Client onboarding can be automated so that AML and CTF risk assessment forms are automatically filled in. Additionally, internal conflicts of interest can be automatically listed and investigated.
TECHFORLEGAL AND THE POWER PLATFORM
At TechForLegal, we apply a broader strategy than just automating repetitive tasks. As such, besides Robotic Process Automation (RPA), we also consider Process Insights, Process Intelligence, and Business Process Management during your legal automation journey.
We truly believe that the Power Platform offers a great toolkit and provides an answer to our four connected pillars, essential to start or speed up your automation journey. And with the much-promising roadmap of the Power Platform, we are convinced the Power Platform will have the ability to tackle any automation challenge.
Triggered by the Power Platform? Get in touch!
