Tag Archives: perfomance

Feb 09

Good pointers – where to start with "lean thinking"

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If you’re on LinkedIn, it’s worth checking out the comments in this discussion about first steps in introducing lean business processes.  For us, getting leadership from the top and engagement with the people doing the work are the key to implementing lean, focused on improving the working environment, reducing stress, reducing costs and delivering better value to clients.

http://lnkd.in/pwu6zK Some background here about our work on lean in law firms.  To find out more and how we could start to work with your practice, contact us here or call +44 (0)161 929 8355.

Nov 03

FT & MPF Research Highlights Opportunities for Law Firms to Strengthen Client Relationships

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Some slides here from enlightening research by the Financial Times and Managing Partner Forum comparing the perceptions of 433 senior execs in law firms and their clients – many of which don’t marry up well; confirming conclusions in a lot of the research we do for law firms in this area.

The report on research findings and presentation identify areas of opportunity for legal practices prepared to be proactive in getting closer to matching what clients really want in their practice.  Good information to work on here to help retain and grow business from existing clients; also to target the weaknesses of  other legal practices that many be complacent about their clients’ changing requirements.  Well worth reading the full report – but don’t just read it … act on it now.

The presentations provide a good snapshot you can share.  Get to know what keeps your client CEO’s awake at night and get your IT people talking to their IT people .. for starters.  The “JFDI” principle applies to get moving on relationships sooner.  Don’t think too deeply about it before you start talking because you never know where a discussion will take you until you get started.

The full report can be downloaded for free here>>

Contact Allan Carton for more information on +44 (0)161 929 8355 or at acarton@inpractice.co.uk

Oct 20

How good to not fret about IT – today's experience

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I just got back to the office before lunchtime today to find that I couldn’t access our CRM system, which sits pretty much at the centre of our business, but is hosted off site with all the rest of our applications.  Inconvenient, but I can relax because I know there is a team already working on it.  More resource with more expertise and clout with suppliers to address this problem than we could ever expect to muster with an in-house team. The interim report back …

“HP are continuing to work with our engineers on this issue.  Essentially … [outline of the problems] … there are two lines of work being conducted to restore services as soon as possible for each customer.  We have an HP engineer on site and two HP engineers who are known as HP best dialled into the SAN from Japan and The Netherlands.  These engineers can see what is causing the [problem] and are working through three steps to try and bring the drives back on line …  in parallel we have a separate team of our own infrastructure engineers who are configuring a new file cluster and have initiated [ outline of steps being taken as a fallback].”

We all know IT breaks sometimes – so how good it is to be able to relax and know that I can be assured it’s going to be  up and running again within a reasonable time.  The issues and resolution may not be as straightforward as they suggest, but they have a big incentive to get this all fixed very quickly

I’ve got plenty more work and business to get on with, so that’s enough for me and I don’t need to fret!

Allan Carton

May 27

Eversheds reduce operating costs through outsourcing

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The big firms are getting leaner, so smaller firms need to take note and  react to stay competitive.  This is not just about reducing the base cost of the people, but it is also a catalyst to improve business processes and the way people work; whether they are in the UK or abroad.

Eversheds has completed its outsourcing programme with the axing of 75 jobs – including 30 in Birmingham – as a result of the back-office agreement with Accenture it announced last year.  The outsourcing, which has seen more than 350 of Eversheds’ financial support processes taken on by Accenture in Bangalore since the deal was agreed, is due to be completed by September, with the firm predicting no further redundancies.

The bulk of the job losses were in Birmingham with 10 posts lost in HR and 20 in financial services. A further 15 staff have been lost in financial services support in Leeds and 20 in Cardiff’s financial services team. The back-office team as a whole has been reduced by 88 roles with 13 departures coming from natural wastage. It was originally thought that around 100 jobs across human resources and finance teams would be lost.

More of the HR processes are expected to move to Bangalore in due course.

May 13

Law firms on the upturn

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SMALL and medium-sized legal firms are seeing signs of an upturn in fortunes, according to a Law Society survey.  Research from the Law Society Law Management Section’s annual profitability survey, reveals that on average fee income rose slightly  – by 0.2 % in 2010 – a significant improvement on the 6.5% fall seen on 2009.

The survey, sponsored by Lloyds TSB Commercial, shows that employee costs fell last year, but average net profit per partner rose 18.6% to £106,297.  Median fee income per equity partner was £455,650, down from £469,666 in 2009, while the average cost of a fee earner was £40,240 compared to £43,938 in 2009, a fall of 8.4%.

Law Society President Linda Lee sayid: “Although there are signs of recovery, progress is slow and firms will be looking at how they can continue to grow as we emerge from the recession.”  Christopher Parker, senior manager, specialist markets for Lloyds TSB Commercial in the North West, says: “In many ways this year’s survey shows a steady, consolidating scenario, but two things struck me.  “First was the increase in median net profit per partner from £89,621 to £106,297. But more important for me was the measure of profit after deducting a realistic notional partner salary – at 7.3% of fee income this is a terrific improvement on the 2.3 per cent shown in the 2009 survey.”

In its 11th year the survey,  is widely regarded as the annual health check report for the smaller end of the legal profession.

Mar 16

Accountant, Andrew Taylor joins the team

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We have continued our expansion with the appointment of Andrew Taylor as a Financial Management Consultant.  Andrew has experience as Finance Director at a variety of law firms and has been advising professional service firms on financial and business management for over 20 years.  As a qualified accountant (FCCA), he is able to advise on a wide range of strategic and operational issues including financial control, costs and cash management; review of reporting systems and overall business improvement.

Andrew’s arrival further strengthens Inpractice UK and its specialist merger team which advises legal clients on all aspects of a merger; from a high level strategic approach to the practicalities of consolidating databases to facilitate mergers on any scale.

Key areas of expertise include profit improvement , focusing on measures to improve financial managementa nd financial due dilgence on mergers.  Experience that law firms can tap into at this time of change in the legal market includes: a) Managing partnership growth from a turnover of £7.5m to £14.0m in 5 years with corresponding growth in profitability; b) Sale of professional practice business to a quoted PLC,  handling preparations for sale, due diligence and integration into the PLC business; and, c) Successful integration of acquired business into a PLC, merging existing and another acquired business into a £30m multi-site, UK wide business.

Commenting on his decision to join Inpractice UK, Andrew Taylor said:  “I’m delighted to join the team.  By working with law firms to increase margins and profits through critical review and a focus on KPIs, Inpractice UK is fast establishing itself as one of the UK’s leading legal consultancies.  I am very much looking forward to working with our clients to help them improve their financial processes and, where appropriate, to prepare them for and guide them through  the merger process.”

Andrew’s arrival is the next piece in the jigsaw in terms of creating a one stop shop for the UK legal sector.  He has a hands-on approach and the ability to quickly assimilate business needs and transform these into practical, profit enhancing measures.  With a track record for improving performance, his appointment is a very positive development for the business.

Andrew is a member of the Inpractice UK specialist merger team and involved in transition of traditional legal practices to LLP, Limited company and Alternative Business Structures (ABS’).  In addition to Allan Carton and Andrew Taylor, this team includes recently appointed IT specialist Damian Griffiths, technology expert Andrew Simmans, Richard Blasdale, a specialist in IT systems selection and implementation and Rita Maguire, a HR and personal development consultant.

The legal services marketplace is continuing to consolidate and further M & A activity is a definite marker on the horizon.  Our team is continuing to expand and we are well positioned to serve the needs of our clients moving forward.

Feb 07

When do IT & BD hit your merger agenda?

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A number of discussions with people involved in mergers over the past week reminded me again how all the high level people involved in the negotiations tend to heave a huge sigh of relief once the heads of  agreement are concluded … which is understandable as everyone involved tends to be worn out by this stage – but there’s a long way to go from here to enable the new business to operate to its full potential. 

The heat is off with the deal done – but how well informed, engaged and prepared are the people on the ground who now need to agree how to bring the IT together in a way that works for the combined business going forwards?  And, what is the plan to capitalise on the new client base quickly – not just telling them that a great deal has just been done, but getting people out there, under their skin, to find out how they think the merged business can do a better job for them?

Generally these questions aren’t dealt with as part of the discussions or the due diligence but they are critical to the success of business.  When the heat is turned off, lack of continuty and agreed plans at a practical level in these areas in particular is likely to dilute and delay the benefits of the merger coming through.  So why not get a team on the job to work on this in the background so the plans get implemented faster, without losing momentum?

Allan Carton

Dec 10

Microsoft reaching deeper into legal practices

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Click on the images below to watch two informative videos from Microsoft, which cover a lot of ground, presented from the US, but it’s happening in the UK too.  They show you some of the innovative tools that more lawyers could be adopting to support their efforts to improve internal operations and to develop stronger relationships with clients, business partners and introducers of business.

If you don’t have Microsoft Silverlight installed on your PC, there is an option to view this as a .wmv file

Allan Carton

Nov 26

Beware smiling assassins!

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Customer advocates are the holy grail of customer management.  These much sought after and highly valuable customers attract new business through word of mouth recommendations without the need for a reward, defend reputations publicly and act as a positive force within a customer base. However, as with all stories of good and evil, there are also dark forces at work. Highly toxic customers, who endanger your business and damage your reputation through negative word of mouth recommendations, I call these customers smiling assassins!

But how do we identify smiling assassins and more importantly, what can we do about them?  To help you spot assassins, consider an experience where you didn’t receive the level of service you expected or paid for, e.g. at a restaurant or a hotel. Did you complain? Or did you simply smile and say “yes fine” when asked “was everything ok?“, rather than “no it was bloody awful and I’m not coming back because of …!“ If so, you are a smiling assassin, especially if you create negative word of mouth.

The majority of consumers are smiling assassins. They don’t set out to be, often they want to voice an opinion or provide feedback but there is no method for doing this. Others don’t want to engage in a dialogue that could lead to embarrassment or confrontation so they simply smile, say “yes fine” and walk away, forever.  Businesses also make it difficult for customers and employees to facilitate feedback.  They see complaints as a nuisance or a distraction; if we ignore them they’ll go away one contact centre manager told me recently. This “burying of heads in the sand” approach and the ignorance of real customer insight is extremely dangerous and results in many missed opportunity to improve services for all customers.

The answer to finding and converting assassins is to take the emotion out of the feedback process and to make it simple. Encouraging customers to be critical is free consultancy, but don’t ask them to complete lengthy questionnaires or send them to a website.  Be sincere, simple and make the communication work for them.  Remember that you are using their time and their thoughts. Capture their issues, concerns and comments, then act upon them. If you can recover the assassin they are highly likely to become an advocate; then rather than tell others how bad you are, they will tell them how you listen, respond and actually care. If you don’t look after your customers, somebody else will, and evil will prevail!

Check out some recent research here from the MoJ that demonstrates just how prevalent this problem is amongst clients of legal firms during the next few days.

Lee Williams

Aug 31

Survey – small legal practices

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Jures, a research company and think-tank dedicated to the legal services market are seeking to gauge the issues that concern small law firms and how confidently they view their future.  If you take part in their “Taking the Pulse of the High Street” survey, they are offering respondents a free CPD webinar worth 2 CPD points.

You can take part in the survey here OR if you prefer that a researcher goes through it with you on the telephone, please call Grania Langdon-Down on 01372 469705  - either way, it won’t take more than 5 minutes. 

Jures are aiming to get responses from as wide a range of small practices as possible – from practices with 5 partners/members or fewer – from experienced solicitors in different types of practice, specialisms and locations to see what are their main concerns and how confidently they view the future. 

To collect your CPD points, please email Grania@jures.co.uk separately when you have completed the online survey.

All responses to the survey will be treated in the strictest confidence.  The survey is also available via the Sole Practitioners Group (SPG) and BLD websites.