Large businesses have realised the benefits of outsourcing their IT needs for some years. Now larger legal practices like Clifford Chance are following this lead. The realisation that maintaining your own IT systems involves skills that are not often readily available and moreover IT people need management and constant updating of their own skill sets.

Smaller practices like King Prior of Gravesend and Ashford are faced with these same challenges. Ron Prior their Senior Partner says, ”we needed connectivity between the offices and management of our software solutions at an effective price, the DPS Hosting solution offers us this in spades!”

As a growing conveyancing practice, King Prior needed to ensure the efficient management of their IT, that it was kept running efficiently and that the security of their files was maintained. They needed virus protection, spam filtering, security access,back up and many other issues to be dealt with and kept current. There was no easier way than the DPS hosting solution.

Hosting is where a practices IT hardware and software is managed externally by a service provider. DPS have been providing this specialist service to Law firms since 2003 and now look after more 200 users in this way.

Senior Partner Ron Prior said, “You have to consider that the IT is the backbone that the business is built on. I now have the time to manage my business with peace of mind because the systems that we all depend on are contracted to be fully managed”!

This solution has hidden benefits in that the hosted firm gets built in IT disaster recovery policy and employees can work from home securely and at excellent connection speeds. The fixed monthly fees with no hidden or unforeseen costs allow firms to confidently budget.

The biggest overhead that any business has are the staff that it employs and similarly they are it’s biggest asset. If those people are not working and earning fees for the firm then the costs to the firm can be enormous.

This is the one factor that has made hosting an increasingly popular solution for firms; they realize how much down time really costs.

Scott Ridley, the DPS Technical Director says, “hosting is an ideal solution for firms that cannot afford or do not want to pay for a full blown IT department and associated staff. To a firm of solicitors this is an overhead that will keep on increasing. IT resources are essential to any firm but most people want to pay for the benefits and not get involved in the day to day running, hosting allows them to do this.”

For more information contact bbostoff@dpssoftware.co.uk