Law Office Technology Forum

CRM Intelligence (Part 2)

By Michael White

Platform Intelligence
If you evaluate the key information threads across all of these systems, four key threads appear: people, companies, clients and matters. Knitting these data points together to produce true knowledge management capability is what a platform CRM system was made for.

A senior Microsoft executive recently sent me a two-sentence note from his handheld after I sent a recap update following a significant presentation.  In the scenario I described, a partner committee is significantly involved and cost is a factor as the firm is looking to replace their current CRM system after investing significantly year over year for the past decade with only a handful of users (clearly a story told by many of today’s law firms).  His comment:

“Their future cannot be evaluated upon a standalone product decision. They must evaluate this based upon the entire Microsoft platform in which they have chosen to invest.”

• First reading…  ok, yeah I get it,  promote greater value;
• Second reading… there is no need to “sell” the value; the firm has already made a conscious and strategic decision to invest in the value of the Microsoft platform and they already use daily the CRM tool of choice for lawyers…  Outlook!

Take a look outside of Legal…  The Microsoft platform is everywhere and growing for every aspect of managing the business: ERP; CRM; Business Intelligence: Reporting, Dashboards, Analysis Tools; Productivity Tools: Outlook, Exchange, Office; and the list goes on and on…

Every law firm in the land has already made their Platform decision.  They know that Microsoft products built for Microsoft products are strategic in future-proofing their investment in technology and ensuring they will continue to grow and enhance their ability to integrate core data and ultimately provide a platform for collaboration to their users.

So, in conclusion, the evolved mantra for Today’s Professional Services firm needs to focus CRM success around adoption of a platform approach to dynamic intelligence gathering, delivering the CRM value required to compete and thrive in the future; and CRM Intelligence is about building a solution on a platform that allows firms to leverage their investment and gather client-critical information in one place. Delivering information that is up-to-date, relevant and actionable is the expectation and need of today’s law firm.

CRM Intelligence (Part 1)

By Michael White

No, the title of this article is not an oxymoron. The mantra for many, during the first decade or so of the legacy products providing ‘CRM’ functionality to professional services firms (and in particular law firms), was that success revolved around mailing list management and focusing on trying to deliver three things lawyers want from a CRM system:

1. Relationship Intelligence
2. Rational List Management; and
3. Data Security.

Having an opportunity to shape today’s CRM tools over the last three years, Client Profiles’ mantra has continued to evolve.  The items listed above still form a fundamental building block for engaging the lawyers in adopting a CRM system, but law firms’ and other Professional Service firms’ needs have well surpassed these basics, growing and evolving as well.  No longer are CRM systems being considered marketing systems. Now CRM is a core component of the technical infrastructure supporting the needs of the firm from a Knowledge Management or “Business Intelligence” sharing platform.  The term “Platform” is used for a very specific reason to be explored later in this discussion.

We find, in discussions with many clients, that we need to start out with what CRM IS NOT to a law firm today.  In other words:

• CRM is less about the Christmas list and mailings and more about managing clients and key account management activity. 

• CRM is less about “how do we get lawyers to use the system?” and more about harvesting data and building relationships between contacts, companies and other
firm data. 

• CRM is less about “I don’t want to share my data” and more about ease of contact contribution and integration with other key data sources, both internal and external.
 
CRM Intelligence
Today’s law firms face levels of competition never before encountered, competing for essentially a fixed global spend for legal services. They are being asked by their partners to enhance profitability, while their clients are pushing them to reduce legal spend. Discussions of Alternative Fee Arrangements, service “productizing”, the death of the billable hour and being pressured by boutique or virtual strategic alliances providing the same or higher levels of service with essentially no overhead. All of these scenarios and many others present challenges which must be addressed.

For firms to compete in these challenging times, they need to understand much more about:

• How to deliver services;
• How to anticipate client needs;
• How to position their services;
• How to retain their existing clients; and
• What services make the firm money?

The answers to these questions reside in many different firm technology systems, on note pads in people’s personal possession, anecdotally, etc. The key data points live in several of the firm’s core system databases: Document Management, Accounting, Human Resources, Case Management, Conflicts, experience, alumni and other key data sources. Consolidation of this intelligence is typically being done in the back room on a spreadsheet.  The data is stale as soon as it is delivered and very often incomplete. 

We have all been there done that… However, dynamic intelligence gathering is the holy grail for this level of information and intelligence about our clients and business.  To achieve this Nirvana, a platform is required. In the next post, we will delve into the idea that firms need to focus CRM success around adoption of a platform approach to dynamic intelligence gathering. Stay tuned...