Introduction – SLA Seminar
The SLA Europe Seminar on the Changing Face of Corporate Information Services – New Service Models and Partnerships held in London on 30 March 2011 was very well attended, no doubt because everybody was keen to hear what was going to be said about the latest outsourcing developments in the legal information world. The timing could not have been better as various new developments had been announced in the legal press after the seminar had been arranged and the speakers selected.
Participants
The evening took the form of a panel session chaired by Stephen Phillips of Morgan Stanley and comprising Liam Brown the CEO of Integreon, Greg Simidian the CEO of Perfect Information, Kate Stanfield, then Head of Knowledge Management at CMS McKenna, and Sarah Fahy, the Head of Global Library Services at Allen & Overy. It was all the more interesting as from 1st April 2011 Kate became the Vice President of Knowledge & Research at Integreon and was therefore sitting next to her future employer.
The event was held under Chatham House rules, and so apart from information already in the public domain, most of the comments here are unattributed.
Experiences of outsourcing
Following introductions, each of the panellists was asked to share their experiences of outsourcing, where they thought it was going and why it was changing the face of corporate information services. Their responses provided the background to how their respective organisations related to outsourcing and, in some cases, implemented it. Each participant had a different perspective and Liam, in particular, commented on the dramatic changes that he had seen in outsourcing models over the years and explained that its application to information services was relatively new.
The underlying requirement for those law firms who have adopted outsourcing is the need to be flexible in order to be able to solve specific business problems. Each participant described a shift in approach from initially trying to keep costs down to moving on to add value. More than ever, sustained and different demands are being made on information departments which cannot always be serviced by existing teams and business models. This may be because of the requirement for special skills or expertise from different backgrounds such as business information. It was suggested that outsourcing could provide the solution by offering a variety of information workers with differing levels of expertise based at different locations, whether in the UK or abroad, in order to service different needs. The firms represented already use outsourcing for other support functions, such as business development and IT and so to them, expanding into other areas, such as legal information provision, was a logical step. Following the presentations there were conversations and questions which covered the following issues:
Communication
Communication was highlighted as vital to the success of any outsourcing programme. Initially this would be between senior management and the outsourcer to establish the business requirement and agree the form of the solution. This would be followed by communication between the teams of information professionals involved and the outsourced teams. Everybody needs to know what is happening, and why, and effort should be focused on getting the teams on board by involving them in plans for the future. This may be particularly difficult when not all the staff are in the same place, company or country as each other and, as with all business initiatives, relationships are vital. For such ventures to be successful it was stressed that communication needs to be continuous throughout the duration of the relationship to ensure that the lawyers and therefore the law firms and their clients are getting what they require.
Quality
Quality was mentioned continuously as being the driver for outsourcing with some firms. They are hoping to achieve a “best in class” status with their outsourcing partnerships. Reputational capital is at the heart of every law firm and quality should therefore translate into business outcomes. The end result should be that clients will be prepared to pay more if they can see how good outcomes benefit them. This translates into a need for both quality control and tight service level agreements. For example, a clause saying “research requests will be satisfied within three hours” should also state that “the information provided will be of satisfactory quality,” along with some definition of what “satisfactory quality” is.
Supporting the information teams involved
The aim of any information department within a corporate entity is to deliver a trusted research service which may pose a particular challenge when outsourcing. How will the requirement for a team of global research professionals be achieved? One effect of outsourcing may be that the less complicated work is hived off to the outsourcing team, leaving senior information professionals in house and able to work on high level projects. If this happens, where will the information professionals of tomorrow learn their legal skills? All the panellists stated that they were committed to professional development and explained how they might address this. Technical training would be started from day one in some of the outsource models. Other law firms are investing in local education initiatives to provide the calibre of staff they need and will be relying on their reputations to recruit good staff locally.
Methods of approach to outsourcing
Those on the panel who had already committed to outsourcing were positive about the future although, as the discussion continued, it became apparent that the firms are adopting different approaches. Whilst some are outsourcing the information management function in its entirety, others are using a blended approach of combining outsourcing with internal resources. This is where a combination of outsourcing, in-shoring and near-shoring are used together to achieve the required result. An example of this would be where a firm opens another office in a cheaper location, usually overseas, and divests some of their process-based information tasks there. This offers the best of both worlds by achieving the economies of scale they require whilst retaining staff in house.
It would have been interesting to hear from someone who had attempted outsourcing, and had a less positive message to convey, as there still seems to be a lot of uncertainty surrounding it, but this was not the message of the evening.
Conclusion
A message that did come through very clearly was that we, as information professionals, need to have the ability to change and adapt our services to meet the new challenges which surround us if we are to survive. This is something which we may not have been very good at in the past. The legal market is shrinking and we must be flexible to be able to make a difference to the businesses of the firms we support. Looked at from this perspective, outsourcing is just one of the tools at our disposal to help achieve a good outcome.
All panellists agreed that it was not a quick process and involved significant investment of time and resources in the early stages. Outsourcing should be seen as a partnership that is built over time. One of the panellists mentioned that it had taken three years of training visits and secondments to an outsourced centre to bring them up to the expected standards and to make the team self-sustaining. Another commented that today there was a better pool of staff and better management structures in place, so it should be quicker now. Someone in the audience raised the point that today law firms may not have the luxury of being given three years to make things work, given the current pace of change.
It is early days for some of the outsourcing projects represented by the panellists. It would be interesting to speak to them again a couple of years time to see whether the reality has lived up to the strategic plans. All in all it was an interesting and thought provoking evening and encouraged as much discussion after the session as it had during – always a good sign.
