Dragons' Den
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Here's a reason to polish up your firm's "elevator pitch" :
Sainsbury's is a large UK supermarket chain selling a wide range of products from foodstuffs to white appliances to financial services. According to the BBC, they have just instituted a system based on the successful BBC TV programme Dragons' Den, to select their future suppliers.
In Dragons' Den, aspirant entrepreneurs appear before a panel of venture capitalists and have three minutes to persuade them (or not) to fund their business idea. Some of ideas that have been pitched are hilarious.
Now, everybody from suppliers of yoghurt to fresh fish to dishwashing liquid to .... legal services (!!!) .... are apparently being required to appear before the Sainburys' Dragons, to persuade them why they should be allowed to supply the corporation. The panel has already seen eleven firms, including City 'buebloods' Addleshaw Goddard, CMS Cameron McKenna, Denton Wilde Sapte, and Linklaters.
If you had to reduce what you say in pitching your firm to clients to three minutes (the time limit on Dragons' Den,) what is it that you would say? Foremost in the Dragons' minds would probably not be your firm's general credentials, history or the quality of your lawyers. They would not have invited you to pitch, were they not already confident in these. Judging by the results of recent client satisfaction surveys on both sides of the Atlantic, they would be looking and listening mostly for evidence that you:
1. understand their business better than the other pitchers
2. have a better value proposition for them (which is more than cheaper hourly rates)
3. will be more responsive and easier to work with than the others
Now .... these things are almost impossible to "fake" and they are routinely amongst those issues that come out at the top of the list of areas of unhappiness that corporate clients have with the law firms that serve them. So, if your overall strategy was focused on genuinely excelling in these three issues, in your selected areas of business, then what would you need to do differently? In what kinds of initiatives would you invest within your firm? How would you change the way that you measure performance (assuming that the old adage that people do as they are rewarded rather than as they are told is true.) How would your firm need to evolve? How would you interact with clients?
Edge International is on the Ground in India
0 Comments - Posted By Rob Millard In Mega-Trends , Strategic People Issues , Tools for Strategists , , , , , , , , , , , - Permalink -
Ms. Juhi Garg
Edge International is delighted to announce the addition of Ms. Juhi Garg. Juhi holds a Masters in Business Law from India's foremost law school, the National Law School of India in Bangalore and is also a graduate in media from Delhi University. With Juhi on our team, Edge International will offer our full traditional range of consulting services to Indian law firms. In addition, we will be focusing on assisting Indian law firms with their strategies to develop business in the western hemisphere and to assist western firms wishing to take advantage of the burgeoning Indian legal services market.
India is a legal services market that is attracting global attention, for good reason. It produces more law school graduates annually than any other country. Its impact with outsourced legal services in western markets has been significant and this is set to grow exponentially as western clients seek to cut legal costs in the face of the current economic recession. Also, upcoming legislation is expected to significantly relax restrictions on foreign firms and lawyers practicing in India. Several international firms have already entered into arrangements with Indian law firms in anticipation of this change.
See Juhi's biography by clicking here.
PUNCHLINE: If you are a firm based in Australia, New Zealand Canada the US or UK (or anywhere else) and are interested in exploring an arrangement with an Indian law firm and you would like counsel on the selection and vetting processes, please allow me, Juhi Garg or Gerry Riskin to explore helping you.
Lake Wobegone Law Firms
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Lake Wobegon is a fictional US town where "the women are strong, the men are good looking, and all the children are above average." It has been used to describe a real and pervasive human tendency to overestimate one’s achievements and capabilities in relation to others. According to a post titled This Just In: General Counsel Less Than Thrilled With Their Outside Counsel on Patrick Lamb's In Search of Perfect Client Service, the Lake Wobegon effect is alive and well in modern US law firms! Continue Reading
The Luxury Touch
2 Comments - Posted By Rob Millard In Strategy 101 , , , , - Permalink -
Global strategy and management consultants Booz Allen Hamilton publish a journal called strategy+business that often contains very good material for the professional service firm strategist.
The latest edition contains an article titled The Luxury Touch, outlining the results of a current survey on what separates the truly great luxury goods and services companies from the simply good ones. Unsurprisingly, it is their superb level of customer service. The good companies really value and practice customer service of a high standard. The point is: the great companies go further, "beyond the call of duty" and attend to customers in a manner is is noticeably better than even the good companies. This places them in a different category, in the minds of their clients. In strategy terms: they are differentiated.
To do so requires more than commitment. The customer focus needs to be proactively embedded in the company's structure, systems and culture. The strategy+business article identifies four things that the truly great companies like Nordstrom and Ritz Carlton and Lexus actually do, to breathe life into their customer focus:
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