2022 Annual Industry Leaders Forum: Smokeball
To bring you the best insights into the Conveyancing industry in 2023 we’ve gathered some of the industry’s most knowledgeable leaders. The Annual Industry Leaders Forum, is an annual series of interviews with leaders from governing bodies and leading tech like Smokeball from across the industry.
Participating this year is: Philip Joyce, CEO, Sympli; Anna Alexander, CEO, AICVIC; Chris Tyler, CEO, AICNSW; Matt Dunn, General Manager – Advocacy, Guidance and Governance, Queensland Law Society; Bianca Bowron-Cuthill, General Manager, Smokeball Australia; Renee Schembri, Service Coordinator, Diamond Property Inspections; and our own Taylah Allen, CEO, triSearch.
In this week’s Leaders Forum, we interview Bianca Bowron-Cuthill. She reflects on the success of 2022 which lead to significant product enhancements.
She added that 2023 will be a year conveyancers need to use verification of identity services and portals for sensitive information sharing which focus on keeping your data safe.
When talking to triSearch PR and Communications Executive, Daniel Hughes, he said:
Q. What were the main highlights and challenges of 2022?
Bianca Bowron-Cuthill: Smokeball as a business has doubled its team across all functions including client success, client experience, product development, marketing and sales.
This has resulted in revenue growth of more than 50 per cent year over year and significant product enhancements to the platform.
We continue to release new matter types and forms each week and have delivered new product enhancements such as a new dashboard to manage critical settlement dates, improvements to VOI, the iPad app was launched, conflict checking functionality added, permissions for financial information, Controlled Monies, protected trust funds, multiple recipients in a letter, improvements to billing permissions and reporting just to name a few.
We have also launched new product integrations including Marketplace Precedents with several new authors, Credit Card Payments, and FamilyProperty with a number of exciting partnerships to be launched in 2023.
Our challenges continue to lie in a constantly changing technology landscape ensuring that we stay across major changes happening that impact our clients.
However, we are confident that due to the ongoing investment in our product development team, we will continue to stay on top of these changes and are committed to delivering the best possible client experience in the legal and conveyancing tech industry.
Q. What will be the immediate focus for conveyancers in 2023?
BB: We have some exciting product enhancements and partnerships in the pipeline which we will announce shortly!
Q. What trends do you predict for the conveyancing industry in the next 12 months?
BB: Increased emphasis on cyber security and digital compliance will be critical. Conveyancers need to leverage technology that keeps their business and their client’s personal information safe and secure.
Whether that be through using secure verification of identity services or secure portals to share banking information with your clients, this focus will be heightened given highly publicised security breaches in Australia.
Q. What is the most important advice you have for conveyancers for consideration in 2022?
BB: I’d encourage conveyancers to do their research on the solutions available to them to help them run their best firms from anywhere.
Ensure that you partner with a software vendor who is committed platform improvements, ongoing innovation, client services, and takes the time to listen to their clients’ needs.
Read what other trends the leaders outlined in the 2022 Annual Leaders Forum by downloading your free The Conveyancing Handbook: A Guide to Success in 2023 now.
