1 June 2012CopyrightMatt Powell and Mehrdad Assadi

Are you tech-ready for the upturn?

While the global economy begins to show the early signs of recovery, the capabilities of today’s enterprise software solutions are also growing, and businesses worldwide are becoming more alert to the importance of understanding and harnessing the competitive advantages open to them via their optimised use of the tools available.

Smart software developers are reinvesting resources and profits to ensure they can offer the very best in terms of service and functionality within their domains, while aligning strategies to embrace and deliver future technologies. This assists the supplier in providing a clear competitive advantage to its clients, making excellent business sense for the licensee and solution-provider alike, by forging close partnerships via a vested mutual interest in success and a measurable return on investment.

Forward-thinking businesses have, of course, always had in mind the need to maximise potential from their use of technology, although it has, perhaps, never been as high on their agendas as it is today. For IP businesses especially, notwithstanding the need to climb out of recession, the continued move towards the globalisation of procedures means that, now more than ever, the need to capitalise fully on any available technological business edge is essential.

If a business ceases to gain any advantage from its current tools it may find that meeting everincreasing client demands becomes increasingly onerous and costly. When this occurs, it’s time to consider and evaluate other available options in the knowledge that the resources required to realign with a future-ready supplier are likely to be a worthwhile investment.

Any IT specialists employed by a practice’s clients are paid to have a finger on the technological pulse, so they are constantly advising of new possibilities, some of which then come to be expected via the external IP services they employ. For the practice, then, the aim is already to have in place a suitable infrastructure which allows it to offer the latest innovations in terms of service, ahead of such client demands, instead of perhaps being pushed into hasty procurement decisions as ‘knee-jerk’ reactions to sudden demands.

In this environment, the challenge for today’s IP firms is to put into action an enterprise solution which will enable them to increase efficiency through the harmonisation of best practices, while being able to at least meet, and hopefully exceed, their clients’ current and future demands, thus helping them to offer improved levels of service at competitive rates.

With industry-based IP departments now beginning to demand online interparty collaboration tools, the need for reducing the paper trail via remote data access, e-filing and e-billing is increasingly appearing among the basic system requirements.

In addition to such prerequisites, the solution needs to be fl exible enough to accommodate any preferred way of working by helping the practice to reduce running costs through improved efficiency and self-sufficiency, leading to increased margins and bottom line profits.

For industry-based IP departments, the facilitation and automation of invention submission, related stakeholder meetings, subsequent rating and eventual filing and prosecution—perhaps via outside counsel—and licensing processes are increasingly important elements of a suitable IP software package.

Put this together with the need for a good level of inherent configuration flexibility, in order to avoid long-term consultancy and customisation costs, and you will be somewhere near to what are increasingly becoming the requirements ‘norm’.

“With IP departments beginning to demand online interparty collaboration tools, the need for reducing the paper trail is increasingly appearing among the basic system requirements.”

The software should enable the in-house IP department and practice to automate processes wherever possible.

For the practice, the increased level of service should lead to improved client satisfaction and retention levels, while at the same time allowing the business to grow in terms of turnover with a significant reduction in the ratio of required support staff.

In simple terms, it means the era of basic IP docketing software is at an end, with a common need to move to an IP management solution capable of integrating and coexisting with other systems, in many cases replacing various single incompatible systems.

You might ask why there is such an apparently growing void between the capabilities of the available software offerings. The answer to this could be quite simple: the sector can be partly divided into those suppliers who are able, willing and actively investing in ongoing market research and product development and those who are, perhaps, not adequately investing in this area or who are, at least, displaying less significant results from doing so.

The platforms that are employed to deliver the user experience can, of course, also dictate the parameters of what is functionally possible, especially when you compare, for example, the capabilities of locally installed Windows-based applications versus their browser-based counterparts.

So while each option has its pros and cons, the astute supplier is able to recognise, program and deliver all of the functional advantages from the various platforms, while minimising any disadvantages by providing the client with the possibility of platform integration and, very importantly, freedom of choice.

With the underlying technologies advancing at such high rates, we can better understand the importance of continued investment into research and development on the supplier side, and can only imagine how far behind the game one could very quickly slip without such investment.

Also important are the levels of maintenance, service and support provided, together with the competitive advantage successful suppliers are able to continue delivering as a result of their well-chosen strategies. With a growing realisation from the market of the measurable advantages to be gained by partnering with a well-matched supplier, there is now also an understanding that the required investment is, thus, more prudent and viable.

The key to success for the supplier is to ensure that a proportionate amount of its revenue is reinvested into the continued research and development of its products and services, enabling the cycle to continue and maximising the services and functions available to clients.

LaVerne Whetstone, IP director at Birch, Stewart, Kolasch and Birch LLP said: “In an informationbased society marked by instant gratification and open-source knowledge, IP firms that fully integrate technology into their operations, functions and communications often succeed in providing premier client services.

The ability to provide immediate and direct communication via extranets or client portals is appealing to clients by maximising efficiency and minimising costs. As well, portfolio management systems are appealing to firms by maximising work product output and minimising human error.”

Smart business owners and managers are now taking stock and ensuring that they are well placed for the inevitable upturn in business.

There are some simple indicator questions which may help you to determine whether your organisation is well placed to deal with current and future business requirements:

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