Briefing 5P webcast: How do you successfully compete on value rather than on rates?
BRIEFING 5P WEBCAST PARTNER
Briefing 5P always seeks to bring firms and their clients together, and in a newly dispersed and highly virtual working world that’s arguably more important than ever. But while the technology means they are often just a couple of clicks away, and reduced travel might even free up some availability for good conversation, what about the dynamics of trust in 2020?
Eddie Hartman, a partner at Simon-Kucher & Partners – as well as founder of the leading online legal services company LegalZoom – speaks to people on both sides of the relationship about their drivers, experiences and challenges. He highlights that although – in an ideal world – price should be approximately equivalent to value received, in professional services that isn’t always the case.
Kirsty Shenton, head of client care at Mills & Reeve, says that firms really need to manage to persuade people to have an emotional stake in the business goals of their clients if they want any claims of client-centricty to be credible. New ways of working need to match what the client truly wants and needs, and value hinges on repeated demonstration of delivery. Attractive alternative fee arrangements mean little if the client can’t see them working in practice through effective process and project management.
Eddie also hears from general counsel at two very different organisations: Dan Kayne at Network Rail, who also founded the O-Shaped Lawyer initiative to help lawyers expand their skillsets and focus from technical excellence into business attributes more likely to be transformative for relationships; and Laila Aslam, who joined the leading book retailer Waterstones as general counsel in 2020, after several years in-house at Deloitte. They discuss the factors that influence their trust in a firm’s performance and people; whether firms appear to have reached ‘burning platform’ point; the pressure firms should feel from the alternatives out there; and the opportunities for technology to improve firms’ chances of a happy relationship.
