Evolution of CIOs and Tech Revolution at Law Firms: Thomson Reuters interviews Subroto Panda

ALB - Subroto Panda

Anand and Anand has stayed on top of recent disruptions with its ever evolving tech might. Understanding the role of CIOs in law firms in 21st century, Thomson Reuters Asian Legal Business spoke to Subroto Panda and other counterparts on the evolution of their roles and the revolution they can bring about in the post COVID-19 world. In his interview, Mr Subroto speaks about his role as a trusted advisor to the firm and how automation has become a tool to ease monotony.

Here are some excerpts:

ALB: Can you tell me about your role and what that covers?

SUBROTO PANDA, chief information officer, Anand and Anand: My role is unique and highly valuable, one that is evolving and yet never losing sight of core goals. As both the chief technology officer (CTO) and the Chief Information Officer (CIO), I balance duties on different ends of the spectrum. A CTO for instance typically looks inward and aims to improve processes within the firm. A CIO, on the other hand, looks outward, and uses technology to improve customer-facing actions. As a CIO, I deconstruct business processes and adopt the best practices in the world for optimum output. Necessarily, this involves use of different and often cutting-edge technologies. Thus, my role has evolved from that of an administrator to a trusted advisor to my firm, especially its senior management.

ALB: How important is the CTO/CIO role to your firm and its overall growth strategy?

PANDA: When it comes to the overall growth strategy, a CIO must create a digital ecosystem for an organisation and individuals transacting across a distributed, constantly evolving, adaptive, open, social, technical system with collaboration, transparency, scalability and sustainability.

A law firm’s life and breath are always its clients. The information lawyers possess about their clients, is often the very secret behind their clients’ success, commercially and otherwise. As a CTO and CIO, I help the firm keep clients’ data extremely secure and protected in today’s day and age of scams and cyber-attacks.

Digital transformation is one of the driving forces behind long-term growth and success in the modern business world given the fact that technology helps expedite numerous processes, automate various operations, and manage remote workers with ease.

Most importantly, our growth strategy is backed up by relevant and verifiable data assisted by analytics.

With so much information flowing with regards to law firms, we efficiently combine big data analytics with artificial intelligence in order to collect and collate vast amounts of data without wasting time or money to ensure great insights and modern analytics for business growth.

Read the complete interview here: https://www.legalbusinessonline.com/features/unsung-heroes