Analytics-as-a-Service is already benefitting industries from healthcare to hospitality to oil and gas. Now it’s time the legal sector started to reap the rewards too.
Data analytics isn’t new – companies have been doing it since Ford invented the assembly line – but the idea of putting analytics into the cloud to become Analytics-as-a-Service (AaaS) is something that’s grown in importance over the past several years.
Since Software-as-a-Service became popular in the late 90s with the onset of cloud computing, you could be forgiven for thinking that everything technological has become a service. You’d be right. There is quite literally an Everything-as-a-Service (XaaS).
The reason the ‘-as-a-Service’ phenomenon has taken off is that cloud-based becomes more accessible to all organizations; small businesses can benefit from a range of technology without requiring big business budgets.
In the case of web-based analytics – AaaS – organizations do not need their own hardware provision or analytics software in-house. A business enters into an agreement with an AaaS partner, who then provides everything from data storage in the cloud to analytics software, data warehousing, data cleanup, and deduplication tools as well as the analytics results and visualizations. Different providers will offer different solutions; from a turnkey solution including initial set up, right through to just the analytics itself.
Regardless of the type of solution, the result is the same; easy access to your Big Data that can change the way your organization works.
In healthcare, for example, AaaS has been used to help quickly identify patients with diseases such as diabetes and cancer where quick reaction times can make a drastic difference to treatment. More recently governments and health organizations across the world have been using AaaS to help fight the battle against COVID-19, by quickly identifying patients, tracking and tracing, and using that data to predict the spread of the pandemic.
In Oil and Gas, organizations are collecting thousands of terabytes of data from IoT devices on remote pipelines and using that to deploy predictive maintenance solutions and prevent long-term malfunctions. By using AaaS instead of housing this data in-house they not only save money on their unplanned maintenance, but they can run the AaaS for short periods on different parts of their infrastructure.
And it’s not just petroleum and healthcare sectors that are reaping the benefits of Analytics-as-a-Service. The global AaaS market is expected to increase from $4.3 billion in 2019 to $12.1 billion by 2024 – a 23.2% growth rate, according to this report.
The reasons for this double-digit growth rate are plentiful.
Organizations are recognizing the value that data analytics can bring. The benefits of having information at their fingertips that offers a new level of insight for decision making, for risk mitigation and for driving new opportunities.
But this comes at the cost of developing an analytics unit in-house – incurring hardware and software fees, alongside the data warehouse required to store all your data. And that doesn’t include the financial burden of new staff required to maintain and update these systems, and data scientists who can translate the data into actionable business intelligence.
For many small businesses, data analytics is cost-prohibitive, despite the rewards.
This is why many organizations are turning to AaaS. Onboarding a partner who can offer all these services – and more – for a monthly fee gives them the ability to discover insights into their business they would never otherwise have benefitted from.
Even smaller businesses are realizing the significance of using their data within an AaaS environment. While Big Data is more reliable for predictive analytics, smaller data sets can be just as valuable in proving insights into risk, customer behavior, or the specific success of certain types of trials, for example.
And that’s why it’s time the legal industry took note.
Traditionally slow to adopt technology, law firms and legal departments are missing out on the benefits that data analytics has to offer. The understandable reasons behind the financial outlay are negated when it comes to AaaS, and while security is always front of mind when data is offsite – AaaS providers are well equipped to deal with any privacy or breach concerns.
Smart law firms already understand that data analytics is business changing. And with AaaS, data analytics becomes cost-effective, accessible, and flexible. From managing clients to driving new business, streamlining internal processes to predicting the right defensive stance in your next litigation, AaaS is a powerful opportunity to use your data to transform your organization.
To find out more about how data analytics and Analytics-as-a-Service can be your game-changer, contact us now.
