Law firms and stethoscopes

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You may have seen that we recently posted a short piece about our approach to Managed IT for the legal sector – one of the key points discussed was our focus on Microsoft and Citrix technologies. In this week’s blog I want to look into this area in a little more detail. 

Microsoft Cloud and Citrix 

“Combining the Microsoft Cloud with Citrix enables the delivery of an IT solution that can deliver the flexibility, agility, collaborative tools and cybersecurity law firms need.” 

Customers sometimes ask us why we have such a tight technical focus. Our answer is that we do not have a prescriptive approach, rather we adapt a consultative methodology and seek to understand the business and technical drivers which might suggest one solution or another. However, when it comes to offering a public cloud solution – and it frequently does come to this, simply because it is the best option for many firms – we only offer Microsoft and Citrix technologies. Why? 

A tailored approach

Well, a recent blog by Citrix (see the link at the bottom of this article) helps to answer that question.  While the blog is aimed primarily at technology specialists rather than lawyers it shows the clarity and depth of the Citrix offering. 
It’s so easy to slip into thinking that one technical solution is much the same as another, especially if one does not have an in-depth understanding of what is being proposed. And it is not only lawyers who might not fully grasp all the implications. Many IT service companies in the UK could be called ‘jack-of-all trades’ with no dedicated expertise in any one technology. But IT services is all about specialisation. 

The stethoscope analogy

As the author of this Citrix blog puts it, choosing a vendor for a Software Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) is “not an easy decision, especially when there are more than 50 vendors claiming semblance of SD-WAN capabilities.” And the writer uses a great analogy, the stethoscope. When evaluating an SD-WAN, or anything else for that matter, using old tools or the wrong criteria “…that only show a sliver of…value…is like using a stethoscope, useful but certainly not conclusive.” So when you are taking a decision about outsourcing any part of your technical infrastructure, be sure to insist on broad spectrum evaluation and don’t rely on a few narrow definitions of performance and value. 

Next steps

At Virtuoso we don’t measure our performance against other IT companies, we’re competing for the satisfaction of our customers. Contact our sales team if you would like to discuss any aspect of your firm’s IT needs or call our switchboard on 020 3326 3900