Loading ...At the IPRO Innovations 2011 customer conference in Phoenix last week, I participated in an excellent panel discussion focused on the potential impact of large enterprise content management (ECM) and archiving platforms expanding into the eDiscovery lifecycle. Panelists Ronald Sotak of Ryley Carlock & Applewhite and Olivia Gerroll of Esentio brought excellent if divergent perspectives. The first thing to realize is that the majority of our audience consisted of IPRO channel partners, i.e. eDiscovery service providers. Some service providers are threatened by global software companies’ recent push to incorporate eDiscovery features into enterprise platforms. Specialty markets like eDiscovery can be eroded when their services are absorbed into normal corporate business processes. So the real question was, “Will in-house software platforms replace the vendors?”
Jim King, IPRO’s CEO, moderated the panel and kicked things off with a provocative online video from CommVault. It takes a couple minutes to get through the usual FRCP discovery pain points, but it quickly gets interesting by attacking the EDRM (Electronic Discovery Reference Model) as effectively being the “definition of insanity”. Their main point seems to be the inherent inefficiency and cost of the traditional multistep-multiparty workflow, which I agree with. CommVault then proposes their own eDiscovery lifecycle model and promises to deliver all that functionality based on their Simpana archiving platform. Time after time I have seen companies wrap a simple interface around basic storage, search and tagging functionality and call that an eDiscovery solution. Heck, I may have even unwittingly participated in such an exercise in a former life. I have recently spent time testing CommVault and other archiving platforms for eDiscovery usage cases. While direct search and access to the source ESI provides huge potential benefits to the corporate legal/IT departments, I have yet to encounter a platform that I could say supported the complete eDiscovery lifecycle.
http://www.commvault.com/ediscovery-legal-action-workflow.html
CommVault’s eDiscovery marketing campaign feels a lot like the early Microsoft reseller pitches around Exchange and Sharepoint 2010. The discovery devil is in the details. My testing on Exchange 2010 found a lot of good new features and definite advances for the IT administrator, but I could not see recommending it for eDiscovery use yet. Circling back to service provider’s displacement fears, I do think that these systems will force them to adapt their traditional volume-based pricing and offerings. The risks and complications of producing heterogeneous ESI to an adversarial party are sufficient to keep most companies from completely eliminating their trusted providers. However, I am seeing a lot of interest in dedicated, managed services contracts in combination with new technology acquisition initiatives. Corporations are starting to realize that they were really paying for the expertise more than processing capacity. Bringing high level expertise in house only pays off if you are a serial litigant with high discovery burdens. That means you still need support for peak burst capacity and resolving new issues. So I think that service providers are here to stay, but only if they can adapt their offerings to meet the new market demands. What do you think?
EDITOR’S NOTE: ROBERT WORKS FOR A VENDOR IN THE SAAS ARCHIVING SPACE.
The co-existence between outside service providers and in-house investment becomes a sourcing decision with two vectors:
- The first of which is the pattern, frequency, and typical volume of litigation faced by the company
- The second is the current level of ‘readiness’ achieved by the company, in terms of existing and planned investments in technology, process, and skill development – along with the company’s risk tolerance
If you look at the end points of these vectors – 1) low litigation frequency and small volume and 2) low readiness, then this is a company that will continue to look to outsource this decision. Outsourcing will always appeal to this segment that has run through similar gymnastics for other business critical applications that it doesn’t want to deal with internally
On the other end – 1) larger volume and frequency with 2) existing in house expertise, technology and process, then you can expect companies will be equipped to control a larger set of components themselves, essentially looking for extra hands for spill over demand and special handling, bet-the-farm matters
In the middle are those surprise scenarios that will continue to arise that catch organizations flat footed, e.g. unusual matter type, larger than expected matter with exotic data sources, or arrival when an organization is in the midst technology change or short on required skills. Lit support providers that will thrive here will be those that are nimble to respond to evolving levels of corporate readiness – and how have the expert advisory services to assist in managing the process and not just processing the data.
April 13, 2011 at 5:57 pm
robertcruz03
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“Will in-house software platforms replace the vendors?” Yes, in part, as they are dead in the way we have traditionally known them. The more quickly evolving eDiscovery service providers are realizing much of the information that they need to ingest into their platforms comes from companies’ Enterprise Content Managers and are evolving. Case Central is a good example of this evolution.
Because corporations are “owning” this process, the need for an eDiscovery service provider to tell companies what they have is vestigial. They are still needed for “Review” in the legal definition of the word, but as companies evolve to be able to provide the entire Information Governance and Document Review needs of a corporation, the eDiscovery service provider will become even more extinct.
Regardless of the changing landscape that is fossilizing eDiscovery providers, there is still a place for the EDRM. The new “search-centric” version of the EDRM does not illustrate any “timing” associated with the events across the EDRM that constitute eDiscovery for litigation. Every component does not simultaneously revolve around “Search.” They occur in phases and on a rolling basis to make that process iterative, particularly as relevant information is sought to be identified. While “Search” has its place, if we proactively manage information, that “Search” is not so daunting. “Search” cannot be in the middle, because if a company is organized, it does not have to search everywhere for everything all the time.
It’s important to capture the broad vision encapsulated by the EDRM. Such a vision enables organizations to understand that litigation and discovery are only one (significant) part of its information management strategy. Such a strategy, with effective information governance procedures, does not draw on the same timeline that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure dictate. It involves many stakeholders and competing agendas that must work together.
Large companies and ECM providers understand this – and they are getting smarter. Given spiraling costs, companies are no longer outsourcing the EDRM process. They are taking action by implementing Archiving/Information Governance abilities and thereby taking ownership of their data and processes. In like manner, ECMs are doing so by offering what their clients want –legally defensible capabilities in one platform, with other drivers besides litigation.
Certainly there will be unexpected scenarios that require an outside vendor, particularly as social media collections grow. However, for the majority of large enterprise organizations, there is a huge push to bring everything up until “Review” in-house. Companies that have followed best practices for information management typically do not need eDiscovery service providers to address left side EDRM issues. Those practices now include moving data to the cloud. This provides companies with the ability to host their own reviews at a reduced cost. Such a tactic allows their law firms to access the cloud for “Review” hence, cutting out the eDiscovery service provider altogether.
Just like gas-guzzling SUVs from the last decade, certain customers will still select from the over-priced and inefficient eDiscovery service provider market since they do not have enough litigation or bandwidth to operate in-house. That market decreases by the day. Greg poses, “Can one company or system do it all now?” I agree with his statement that not one company or solution can do it all right now, as Information Governance and eDiscovery employ a complex system of “People, Product and Process.” Yet I think we do now know what we can do for ourselves though…and I do think we are close.
April 21, 2011 at 12:06 pm
alliwalt
Member Type: Corporate | Role: Attorney | Size: Global (more than 10000)