SFP Providers at Work: Innovative Computing Systems
The Successful Firm Project is committed to bringing firms and providers together to help enhance and advance the work of our members. In our SFP Providers at Work series, we highlight the work of our SFP sponsors. This article looks at the work of SFP sponsor, Innovative Computing Systems.
Successful firms know that moving towards the future often means making an investment in the present. That’s the approach Innovative Computing Systems says it takes with its law firm clients, helping guide them toward the best technology practices for 21st century firms.
“Because law firms are cash-based businesses, the firms are incentivized to hang onto as much cash as possible and share it,” says Michael Kemps, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Innovative Computing Systems. “Partners that take a step back and consider reasonable technology investments and efficiencies actually end up gaining more efficiencies and profitability in their firms. It’s a matter of guiding them to that point, giving them examples of other firms who have done so, showing them it can work and illustrating that technology is an investment and not just an expense.”
Founded in 1989, Innovative Computing Systems partners with law firms looking to define or improve a comprehensive IT strategy and implements, integrates, and supports legal and horizontal technologies. Additionally, they work to enhance cybersecurity and leverage the power of cloud computing. As the full outsourced manned services provider for its clients, Innovative Computing Systems provides the implementation and support of all its products. In addition to product offerings and support, Kemps says the trustworthy relationships ICS builds with its clients is what distinguishes his company from competitors.
“We become an integrated part of [our clients'] teams. Unlike many managed service providers where it’s a matter of opening a ticket, we have much closer relationships with our clients. In an environment where clients are regularly and consistently being audited, trust is becoming an even greater issue,” Kemps says.
Kemps has been operating with that ‘relationship-first’ mindset since he entered the legal space in 1987. After he was able to successfully recover lost data for his first legal client, Kemps began to receive referrals to work with other law firms. He says he realized the value of being vertically focused and saw it as an opportunity to focus on and specialize in the legal field. Kemps later became the youngest Novell Certified Engineer in the country and says he founded Innovative Computing Systems with the goal of being the “white knight of the industry.”
“Rather than take on every client we can in the world, I’d rather have a smaller number of special relationships,” Kemps says.
Innovative Computing Systems ideal client is a practice-area focused and a boutique-sized firm of twenty to fifty attorneys. Over the previous five years, Kemps and his team have worked hard to drive more clients toward the cloud. As firms transitioned to primarily remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic, Kemps says his clients who were cloud-based were best equipped to support their teams with work from home flexibility. Currently, 40% of ICS clients are utilizing cloud-based services (a number Kemps hopes to grow to 80%).
As for the future of legal technology, Innovative Computing Systems believes successful firms will be those who adopt more security practices, lock down on better protecting their firms and integrate support applications that are cloud and browser based.
About Innovative Computing Systems
Innovative Computing Systems, Inc., has primarily focused on the technology needs of law firms since 1989, and those skill sets have been sought out by entities such as municipalities, corporate environments and professional services organizations. Innovative Computing Systems takes a best-of-breed approach to all its offerings. Innovative Computing Systems selects only premier technology partners to provide solutions to its clients and is committed to maintaining long-term strategic relationships with them to ensure the highest levels of success, both in productivity and with IT initiatives proper. Learn more by visiting their SFP Sponsor page here and check out their website at www.innovativecomp.com