how competitive intelligence helps professional service firms succeed

The Intelligence Collaborativehttp://IntelCollab.com #IntelCollab

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How Competitive Intelligence Helps Professional Services Firms

Succeed

Dr. Ann Lee Gibson Dr. Craig Fleisher

A Complimentary Webinar from Aurora WDC

12:00 Noon Eastern /// Wednesday 9 July 2014

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Ann Lee Gibson advises law firms on competitive intelligence and business development. She consults, teaches, and coaches in the areas of firm growth strategies, high-stakes business competitions, and sales presentations. Dr. Gibson also helps law firms develop CI and proposal systems. Since 1998, she has helped law firms compete for and win over $800 million in new business.

[email protected] Twitter.com/@annleegibson www.annleegibson.com

The Intelligence Collaborative is the online learning and networking community powered by Aurora WDC, our clients, partners and other friends and dedicated to exploring how to apply intelligence methods to solve real-world business problems.

Apply for a free 30-day trial membership at http://IntelCollab.com or learn more about Aurora at http://AuroraWDC.com – see you next time!

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:Twitter.com/@annleegibson

http://www.annleegibson.com/

http://intelcollab.com/

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Agenda

1. Overview of professional services firms

2. How professional services firms differ from other enterprises

3. Growth and challenges of professional services firms

4. Wide-ranging CI roles, functions and work in PS firms

5. Are you well suited to succeed in these firms?

6. Summary, Q&A and discussion


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ProfessionalServices

Industries

Legal EngineeringManagement

Consulting Accounting Architecture

1. 2013 Revenue $277 B $207 B $153 B $94 B $38 B

2. All Employees 1,350,000 1,100,000 1,200,00 518,000 260,000

3. Businesses 411,000 147,000 590,000 109,000 98,000

4. 2009-14 Growth Rate 1.1% 1.1% 5.1% 2.8% 1.6%

Representative Large Firms

1. 2013 Revenue $2.2 B $27.3 B $7.8 B $13.9 B $116 M

2. Professionals / All Employees

1,670 / 4,300

? / 38,000

7,500 / 14,000

50,100 / 60,900

440 /550


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100 Largest US Accounting FirmsSource: Accounting Today

Owner Partners

16,900All Professionals

128,300Staffing Leverage

6.6 : 1Revenue Per Professional

$390,000

Top 100 US Law Firms2013 Revenue

100 Largest US Law FirmsSource: The American Lawyer

Owner Partners

20,100All Lawyers

92,000Staffing Leverage

3.6 : 1Revenue Per Lawyer

$841,000

Industry Consolidation Varies Greatly

Total Revenue $77 BTop Firm $2.5 B25th Firm $975 M100th Firm $310 M75% of Revenue 53 firms

Top 100 US Accounting Firms2013 Revenue

$0 $5.0 $10.0 $14.0 $0 $2.5

Total Revenue $50 BTop Firm $13.9 B25th Firm $450 M100th Firm $31 M75% of Revenue 4 firms


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PS Firms Differ from Other Enterprises

1. OwnersMany … highly educated … empowered … elevator assets … not

normal

2. CulturesTraditional … hierarchical … relationship-based … lofty

3. RegulationLicensed … governmental protections … ethical codes

4. Leadership and managementHome-grown … unprofessionalized … political

5. Decision-making processesSlow … distributed … consensual … black-box


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Chapter 6 – Attributes Peculiar to the Legal Industry and Law Firms

(Free to Webinar participants)

► Size and scope of the legal industry

► What law firms compete for

► Law firm competitors

► How law firms organize to provide legal services

► Lawyers and other people who work in law firms


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http://www.dni.gov/index.php/about/organization/national-intelligence-council-global-trends

http://www.dni.gov/index.php/about/organization/national-intelligence-council-global-trends


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Individual Empowerment Nexus of Food, Water and Energy

Diffusion of Power .Changing Demographic Patterns.

1 2

4 3


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Generational Transition in Professional Services Firms → Culture Shifts and Diversity of Talent and Clients


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Global 2030 Game Changers

11. Crisis-prone global economy

2. Impacts of new technologies

3. Governance gap

4. Potential for increased conflict

5. Wider scope of regional instability

6. Role of the United States


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New Stressors on PS Firms

New Technologies

1. Big data access, analysis

2. Better KM tools

3. Better work processes

4. Better project management tools

5. Bigger, better, faster, more reliable Internet access

6. Approaching technological singularity and task automation

New Competitive Forces

1. Buyers requiring more fixed costs

2. Bundled services are disintegrating

3. New outsourcing competitors with substitute inputs

4. New investment capital for new entrants

5. Second World is producing new competitors

6. Fewer regulatory protections


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Challenges for CI Workers in PS Firms

Work challenges

1. Your firm has many competitors—scores, hundreds.

2. Firm clients come from all sectors, industries, locales.

3. You must learn the profession’s services, processes, rules.

4. You must build an internal firm network and an external industry network.

Culture challenges

1. You’re “not a professional.”

2. You must learn how CI clients think and decide.

3. They confuse info and intel.

4. They will seek out mistakes and re-analyze your information.

5. They will debate strenuously your intelligence/conclusions.

6. Your reporting styles must mirror their reporting styles.


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How to Add Value and Advance in PS Firms

1. First, find a CI client who makes decisions and needs your help.

2. Know / learn what your client already knows.

3. Do good work. Then do better work.

4. Disseminate differently (a) the intel that confirms what your clients

know and (b) the intel that will surprise them.

5. Find a chronic problem and the person who worries about it.

Collaborate with them to find a way to make that problem go away.

6. Find high-status, high-value clients with strategic decisions to make.

7. Evolve your role to focus on the highest-risk, highest-value decisions.


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How to Minimize “Hey You!” Assignments

1. Catalog and code every CI assignment—time spent, estimated value, results, and all project documents.

2. Build templates for simpler assignments and teach others to do them. Automate as many intel products as possible.

3. Avoid responsibility for weekly, monthly info report updates.

4. Find and train others at the firm who have potential for CI work.

5. Prepare an annual calendar for strategic CI projects tied to known strategic decisions.

6. Find a high-status protector with high-value, high-risk decisions to make.


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High Functioning CI Workers in PS Firms

CI Strengths / Skills

1. Familiar with industry, players, competitive forces

2. Active listener and strong humint elicitation skills

3. Strong analyst—all kinds

4. Persuasive writer

5. Good report designer and creator

6. Dual affections for (aligned) strategy and tactics

7. Good teacher, mentor, team builder

Personal Attributes

1. Very fast learner

2. Not defensive or easily intimidated

3. High attention to detail

4. Politically astute

5. Boardroom presence

6. Comfortable with ambiguity

7. Enjoys role of an internal consultant

8. Enjoys firm culture and working with “professionals”


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Evolution of Law Firm CI

1. CI functions in law firms started in late 1990s.

2. Law firm CI functions range from very basic to very sophisticated.

3. Law firm CI functions lag those in large accounting firms.

4. Firms initially recruited home-grown CI talent from within industry.

5. CI first focused on BD, sales, key client relationships.

6. Then law firm CI turned to lateral recruiting, new offices, mergers.

7. Firms are now focusing on broader competitive strategies and issues—services, processes, structures, new kinds of labor.

8. Firms now recruiting strong CI talent from outside the industry.

9. Firms are locating strategic CI resources in the C-suite and keeping more tactical CI resources in marketing and library.


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Thank you! Now, how about a little Q&A?

Web: www.annleegibson.comEmail: [email protected] Blog: www.lawfirmci.blogspot.com Twitter: @annleegibson

http://www.annleegibson.com/

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.lawfirmci.blogspot.com/

https://twitter.com/annleegibson

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