Cloud hosting is a huge business internationally, largely dominated by big players, however a local player is rapidly changing the scene with a growing list of law firms embracing the new, cloud-based solution.
Resolve Technology’s success is due to founder and managing director Simon Falconer, an energetic and highly motivated young entrepreneur who saw a gap in the market when trying to solve an IT problem for a friend’s business.
Simon went on to develop a Deloitte 500 “Fastest Grower” company with clients across the country and a growing rolodex of satisfied law firms.
Resolve’s “secret” is to be both a home-grown legal practice hosting and support solution that recognises the particular requirements of New Zealand law firms, but they’ve also taken advantage of a changing scene in service provision to legal practices, which no longer enjoys the maintenance-based revenue streams that many suppliers relied upon.
“We are not wedded to the ‘break fix’ model which depended upon malfunctioning IT systems for revenues,” says Simon.
Resolve’s ranking in 2014 as the 8th fastest-growing technology company in New Zealand, and 59th in Asia Pacific indicates that their service, approach and unique skill set in a competitive IT service environment is finding favour with local law firms.
The first legal firm to seize the moment and embrace the local hosting platform was high profile boutique firm Chen Palmer, who remains a client today together with a growing raft of 25 law firms to date, but with new firms coming on board regularly.
Resolve’s key difference from other local hosting providers is it’s expansive and specialised knowledge of the local legal industry and how best to provide a suitable safe and convenient hosting platform that transforms IT from a costly capital expense into an affordable operational expense.
Resolve’s legal clients include small, medium and large firms with the company increasingly coming up against the big players in the IT hosting and support market – and winning.
Lawyers are notoriously scrupulous and demanding when it comes to selecting serviceproviders, let alone deciding how and where they host their data and who they’ll put in charge of it, but a growing number of firms are trusting Simon and his team at Resolve with this .
“We have deep knowledge of what law firms are wanting and how the tools and software they use on a daily bases integrates with this environment. We also understand they want their data to stay in New Zealand, to be able to visit and touch their server, and know it’s in trusted hands,” says Simon.
Resolve’s flexibility and nimble approach to the market, combined with their smart cloud-based, niche model means they have been quick to provide high value to law firm clients, something that is increasingly becoming a focus for Resolve as they look to specialise further in the legal sector.
“We are learning more and more everyday about how to service our legal clients above and beyond what they expect and our platform is improving exponentially to service this, says Simon.
As the law and technology continue to move fast, so too is Resolve able to work to bring the best-of-breed technology to the legal workplace, which the company is focused on providing to clients in order to maximise efficiencies and minimise costs.
“The obsolescence of the inhouse server has been one of the biggest changes to have occurred in the IT business since the 1980s,” says Simon.
Simon Falconer’s view is that Resolve stands ahead of the other occupiers in the legal and professional services field as a result of not having to “retrofit” their business model by adopting a new approach beyond the requirement to “fix” inhouse servers, as well as being able to customise their service to local firms.
Resolve’s servers are New Zealand-based across both the north and south islands and comply with NZ Law Society requirements by maintaining the servers within New Zealand.
Resolve has also developed a unique partnership with charitable organisations needing multi-site large scale IT at very low cost.
Resolve work with the Open Home Foundation, providing access to corporate sized IT infrastructure across the whole country at 14 different locations. When the charities’ headquarters’ power goes out, or something breaks in-house, the remainder of the country stays up and running, an issue that many multi-site business just put up with.
As well as supporting several other community care programmes Simon and his wife also provide a respite home for children within the foster care system, which he says is part of the culture of the Resolve team.
“Giving back is part of what is central to our culture,” says Simon.