Watch Michael Greig, Product Manager - Legal Applications, Charles Russell Speechlys, discuss BigHand Workflow Management, the firm’s move to the cloud, the potential of AI email routing, and how teams are adapting to faster technology change.

Transcript

My name is Michael Greig. I am a Product Manager of Legal Applications at Charles Russell Speechlys.

I look after a number of the tech stack, but in terms of BigHand: BigHand Document Creation, Pitching and Proposals, and BigHand Workflow Management, which is now in the cloud.

Q: What benefits have you seen since moving to the cloud?

It would be the fact that we don't have to look after the tech stack. It doesn't cost us money to host.          

Honestly, just the number of updates that you're able to get at the pace that you're able to get them.

It just enables your business to work faster. It enables people to do their job in an easier fashion.

We get updates six weeks, previously, it used to be, say, six months.

That's how long it might take. If you were to do a project to upgrade.

Well, listen, I'm saying it like it's the future, but everybody knows that it is.

That's why people have cloud-first.

Q: What are you expecting from BigHand's AI Email Routing Feature?

We were not an early adopter of the email ingestion.

That was mainly because we were trying to get away from people emailing secretaries and PAs. It's not the way to work anymore.

Keeping it away from a system that allows us to report on where some of the pinch points are.

And so we've got to email ingestion. That has been a massive plus and a massive win for us.

And the AI part of that where we can just have one email address and then it tells the system, this is where this needs to go. That needs to go there. This will go over there.

It's going to be an absolute game changer for us.

Q: How do you manage the pace of technology change for your teams?

The way things work these days in IT is very, very different.

Obviously, you've got things like AI: very fast-moving, very fast-paced.

Changes happen in a much easier manner these days.

That's not to say you don’t have change control, but that's to say that, the technology, if you're in the cloud, for example, things change.

If you're using software which is regularly updated, it changes much faster than it used to.

I think everybody understands, as long as something works, and you're doing minor changes, small improvements that are better for the user.

I have to make sure that the user base or the teams that we are deploying this to are happy with what we're giving them.

It is really important. It's basically their bread and butter, their day-to-day.

And so, if that doesn't work as well as it can, obviously, then I'm making their job harder.

Q: What stands out about BigHand?

The ethos. Everybody that works at BigHand is fantastic, polite, friendly, approachable.

They're just a really nice company. They're a really nice bunch of people.

Whether it be support, whether it be outside, you know, just actually in terms of friendships.