Use Case: Lawyers Leverage Document Sharing Technology to Attract and Keep Clients in a Competitive Market

Problem:

One of the more common legal processes where opportunities exist to mitigate costs for the legal profession is associated with satisfying subpoenas in civil cases. Even a small case with a short duration can result in the need to gather and reproduce thousands of pages of documents, including: various agreements, letters, contracts, meeting notes, emails and other supporting materials.

The document reproduction costs associated with these cases alone can run into the many thousands of dollars. In addition, substantial hourly rates are charged to clients by lawyers and their respective staffs as they seek to locate specific information relevant to a case that may be included in the supplied materials. At most firms’ hourly rates, this can be a significant cost to clients and can take considerable time, lengthening the overall process while increasing costs.

Solution:

With Praura, lawyers can better serve an ever cost-conscious clientele in an increasingly competitive market by simplifying the process required to satisfy information production and sharing requirements tied to civil cases. By simplifying the process, lawyers can keep ancillary document reproduction and research costs in check.

Praura allows lawyers to build a virtual network for each case to ensure that all relevant parties have access to the right information at the right time. Tasks can be tracked and quickly assigned to administrative staff and associates. Calendars can be shared to keep everyone’s schedule coordinated. Access to sensitive documents can be tightly controlled. Discovery can be simplified through the use of powerful search and retrieval tools and document reproduction costs can be brought to zero as documents can be quickly shared with opposing counsel in electronic form via a secure online portal.

When combined with internal case management and workflow solutions, Praura can significantly lower costs for clients while improving services and can simplify the delivery of large volumes of documents and information to opposing counsel when satisfying a subpoena request.

Benefit Breakdown:

• Ability to seamlessly upload large volumes for documents


• Advanced searching simplifies discovery process by enabling robust searches across all documents in the library with a single search regardless of document format


• Limit access to sensitive documents while assigning access to relevant parties


• Manage tasks and coordinate calendars with administrative staff


• Build a virtual network for a case without letting outside parties into case management workflow


• Reduce or eliminate document reproduction costs for clients

Use Case: Helping Recruiters Get Closer to Hiring Managers

Problem:

Recruiters and placement professionals must juggle a myriad of job postings by clients as well as manage thousands of incoming resumes and supporting documents. On top of this, they have to operate in an incredibly competitive marketplace with the knowledge that any job they are looking to fill for hiring companies are also being searched by several other competitors. The typical recruiter or placement professional typically uses email as a means of communicating with clients. This makes it difficult to coordinate across multiple positions and makes it impossible for clients to quickly locate resumes with a specific skill without reading them all.

Solution:

With Praura, recruiters and placement professionals effectively create a closed community around a specific job opening or series of openings. The recruiter can quickly set up hiring managers so that they may upload their job descriptions, non-disclosure agreements, employment applications and any other documents they require from prospects quickly and securely. Similarly, recruiters can create a Praura account for executives so that they can upload their own resumes and supporting documents.

When the recruiter matches executives to positions he simply provides access to those executive profiles to the hiring firms. This allows the hiring manager to set up and schedule interviews, search across resumes for specific skills, and schedule tasks for the recruiter and/or internal staff participating in the search process. Each member of the network has their own dashboard so that tasks can be accessed, managed and assigned. By using Praura for document storage, both hiring managers and recruiters have access to a persistent searchable library of potential employees to simplify searches for future positions.

Recruiters have the flexibility to utilize Praura features in any way that suits their specific business model. The can turn features (such as task assignment, communications or calendars) on or off. They can provide access to executives or just to hiring managers. Whatever works for their business.

Benefit Breakdown:

• Secure two way transfer of documents to protect client privacy


• Limit access to job descriptions and resumes


• Private communication between parties discussing job changes


• Assignment of tasks to parties participating in search process


• The ability to manage multiple accounts and searches while operating remotely


• Closer relationship with hiring firms through improved service offering

Use Case: Streamlining a Small Accounting Practice

Problem:

Accountants, bookkeepers and other financial professionals often interact with their business clients via email. This means that sensitive bank account, payroll and tax information sails through cyberspace totally unsecured. Using email as a document workflow system also lacks any organized tracking or searching mechanism. This can result in difficulties tracking down documents for specific clients that are required for time sensitive payroll and tax filings. The result is usually an inefficient process managing piles of documents that is more costly to the client and limits the amount of clients each CPA in a firm can serve per period. The net effect is poor customer services and a lost opportunity to generate more revenue for the firm by servicing a larger client base.

Solution:

With Praura an accountant can create a separate secure console for each of his clients. This allows him to post communications, alerts and reminders, store forms and deliver documents back to the client in a secure environment. Each client has a single location to go to in order to access tax and payroll documents. Clients can seamlessly upload documents that they need to deliver to their CPA. His console will serve as a corporate library for each tax period and will allow the CPA to add value by serving as an effective provider of corporate memory for the client.

CPA firms with a partner-associate structure can create tiered libraries for clients where each associate is linked back to a partner. The partner will have insight into the work being done by his or her associates while each associate will have the ability to create client specific consoles. Partners can send communication and guidance to associates and associates can prompt clients with specific instructions. The result is a totally transparent environment where accountants can collaborate with clients and partners to ensure a superior experience for their customers.

Benefit Breakdown:

· Secure two way transfer of documents between clients and accountants
· Creation of a secure virtual library for each client account
· More transparent environment for partners and associates
· The ability to manage multiple accounts while out of the office