{"id":2356,"date":"2023-09-03T19:07:24","date_gmt":"2023-09-03T19:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/georgejon.com\/?p=2356"},"modified":"2023-10-06T20:36:57","modified_gmt":"2023-10-06T20:36:57","slug":"how-to-establish-maintain-profitable-ediscovery-operations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/georgejon.com\/news\/how-to-establish-maintain-profitable-ediscovery-operations\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Establish & Maintain Profitable eDiscovery Operations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BY GEORGE NEDWICK<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Download PDF Version<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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It\u2019s time to face the facts: your eDiscovery operation is a vital, but unprofitable, part of your business. Staffing, managing, scaling, and supporting eDiscovery data systems is both complicated and expensive, filled with time and money sucks that sap efficiency and profitability. Whether you are a law firm, consulting practice, corporation, or government agency, we see the same issues affecting eDiscovery users around the world: how to work better\/faster\/cheaper without compromising growth potential, staff productivity, or quality of work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over fifteen years of eDiscovery platform consulting and problem solving, we\u2019ve identified a set of common failures that drive customer organizations toward mismanagement, overspending, and inefficiency. Our real-world experience with a global customer base has led to the creation of proven processes and best practices that remedy these missteps and provide a confident foundation for strategic growth and profitable operations. We have been auditing real-world eDiscovery environments for fifteen years and have been able to deliver meaningful savings for customers worldwide, over $1M in many cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why eDiscovery is Costing You Money<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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EDiscovery is a fluid industry that requires both flexibility and expertise to forge a cost-effective, successful operation. Business plans must be continually updated to optimize resources, expenditures, and infrastructure to match changing market needs and customer demands. What confounds many management teams is how to handle more matters and satisfy elevated customer expectations for speed, accuracy, and professionalism without incurring or passing on additional costs. Simply put, you need to provide more without charging more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This makes cost-efficient operations paramount to success, as eDiscovery is necessary (legal teams cannot function until evidence is in-hand) but not profitable, forcing you to balance billable work with loss categories. Management often sees only one line item for tech expenses and does not understand the intricacies that drive those costs or how to best optimize the resources therein. As eDiscovery can represent up to 50% of the total cost of handling a matter, it is critical to have a plan for cost controls and resource allocation that embraces budget-positive industry trends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Want some real-world proof? We recently performed a comprehensive review of line items and workflow for a major international consulting organization. Our review identified widespread waste and major inefficiencies, which once remediated, reduced their annual technology spend from $26M to $8M, an $18M annual windfall!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this article, we will discuss the following tenets for building a sustainable and profitable eDiscovery operation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. Rationalize and right-size tech expenditures<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Move internal IT staff to profitable activities, increase utilization and ROI from assets<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Build scalable\/flexible platforms that can grow as needed<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    1. Rationalize & Right-Size Tech Expenditures<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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    The Problem:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Technology exists and evolves to make our jobs faster, easier, and more efficient. The key is to reap the benefits of technology without paying for services, hardware, and features that are extraneous, inappropriate, or misguided. It\u2019s easy to suffer from \u201ctech bloat,\u201d where you throw money at problems that may or may not exist, generating burdensome costs that stick in your future budgets. It is critical to scrutinize expenditures, needs, and outcomes (for today AND tomorrow) to forge a right-sized tech budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    A common mistake is to let existing budgets dictate future spend, which often hinders an honest examination of costs and needs. YOY line-item budgeting is too often a direct reflection of a company\u2019s performance over the course of the year. The path of least resistance is to simply approve what is already on the books with a modest up\/down bump, as you assume that existing line items are worthy expenditures. It\u2019s time to break this cycle and use your annual tech review as an opportunity to chart a more informed course of action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It is critical to scrutinize expenditures, needs, and outcomes (for today AND tomorrow) to forge a right-sized tech budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    GeorgeJon Solutions:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n