Time to embrace technology?

Authors / contacts: Mike Gilpin, Kimberley Davies

In the last 7 days life has changed dramatically all around the world. Whilst governments are busy building plans to protect the public and the economy in the face of this unprecedented health crisis, many businesses have found themselves caught underprepared for the majority of the workforce working from home. In the last few weeks management, business continuity and IT teams have been working round the clock to prepare as best they could. Many workers are now adjusting to working from home but this hasn’t been a smooth transition for many businesses.

It has struck us how tricky this might be for some industries that have not previously provided  remote working facilities where their teams still handle a lot of paper. Coronavirus (COVID – 19) has highlighted just how essential digitalisation is not just for efficiency but for business continuity reasons. One of the benefits of cloud-based solutions is the ability to access information from anywhere and scale solutions up and down. If businesses weren’t already moving towards using the cloud, they are likely now rushing to do so. Amidst all the bad news at the moment it’s been nice to hear our clients say our technology has meant they are already prepared for home-working as they can handle claims remotely, accessing the IQ Platform from wherever they are.

Not only is technology essential to getting back to business as usual, even from our own living rooms but it’s also going to be as important once this pandemic is over. With the upcoming reforms already impacting the wait time for county courts, COVID -19 it will undoubtedly exasperate the problem further. It’s likely many cases will end up settling outside of court to reduce operational cost of keeping cases open awaiting trial. Settlement Negotiator means claims can be settled faster and more cost-effectively. It’s an online, automated, unbiased and confidential system that automatically handles the claims negotiation process, without paper or face-to-face meetings – both sides enter three offers into the tool and it finds the overlap and splits the difference. Just weeks into the Coronavirus pandemic taking hold of the world we’re already seeing a spike in demand for Settlement Negotiator recognising it is a valuable tool to avoid time-consuming and expensive litigation in this period of uncertainty.

One of the other tools that has also formed a key part of our customers’ Coronavirus planning is Recovery Manager. Even with Government assistance, the impact of the pandemic on businesses of all sizes will be considerable. Recovery Manager is enabling customers to recover losses and boost their bank accounts. Many of our clients have years worth of backlogs of debt recovery, amounting to millions. Recovery Manager means even small sums can be recovered quickly and cost effectively and requires little or no user training to start raising claims.

The COVID -19 outbreak will have a lasting impact on businesses but embracing technology will help organisations weather the storm and recover once the worst is over. If you would like to have a conversation about your technology strategy get in touch with the Kennedys IQ team.