Outsourcing News

Early Case Assessment (ECA) is the e-discovery solution most in demand, according to the 2009 Socha-Gelbmann Electronic Discovery Report . In my blog post, E-Discovery Takeaways , I discussed the various methods clients are using to reduce the cost of handling e-discovery such as by in-sourcing and moving data to the cloud. Many corporations and law firms are also pinning their hopes on ECA. This hope, however, is often misplaced; effective ECA requires detailed process know-how and avoiding undue faith in a single application touted as an ECA panacea. The report describes industry wide confusion between perceived and true functionality offered by ECA applications:  “ECA has been a hot topic for the past two years. We believe a major factor for this level of popularity is that it is being portrayed by many as a silver bullet for constraining runaway costs. A concise, generally accepted definition of ECA does not exist. Consequently, defining ECA depends on who you ask. Some purveyors of products are working at rebranding old tools as ECA adding to the confusion.” [emphasis added] The survey results also indicate that “ overselling ” by software providers is one of the biggest problems in e-discovery related to ECA. Hand-in-hand with this problem is the need for ESI-specific lawyer education and mentoring

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Early Case Assessment – The Emperor Has No Clothes

In 2009, the Black Book KPO investments industry user survey investigated over 182 contracts held by 740 of the top spending brokerages, investment banks, capital markets and financial conglomerate corporations globally. In order to rank the organizations, 18 key performance indicators (KPIs) or criteria are employed, scored on each respective vendor by client type and ranked on a 0-10 scale per KPI. Key findings: Customization, integration/implementation and vertical expertise are the most important attributes influencing KPO investment clients’ satisfaction with their 2009 outsourcing providers. Vendor dissatisfaction is uncommon in the KPO industry among top ranked suppliers Strong dissatisfaction is uncommon in this niche KPO sector, occurring in only 2.6% of hedge fund industry client types, 2.9% in investment banking clients, and 3.8% in equities research clients globally. UK and US clients are among the most satisfied with KPO services delivery. Strong dissatisfaction with offshore outsourcing vendors was less than 6.3% of all surveyed clients with 2009 projects. Comprehensive services vendor arrangements from a comprehensive/end-to-end KPO investment vendor produced the highest satisfaction rates.

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KPO service provider survey – Black Book of Outsourcing

KPO, elaborately also known as Knowledge Process Outsourcing, is a very good business strategy, which provides you the best way to get more progress and success in your business. The KPO services usually work out for different services like architecture and designing, data processing, transcription services, data conversion services, legal consulting services, data harvesting services, financial services, software services, market research and analysis, web-based market research, and so on. It is very important to choose the right KPO services provider for your business, as choosing the best KPO service provider, as the KPO services experts can provide the best business development strategies suitable for your business.

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Hire KPO Services India

Location: USA Job Description The Banking & Financial Services practice focuses on major banks and financial institutions in North America.  Mortgage: Consumer Loans secured by real estate (e.g., personal residence & commercial).  This includes the underwriting, approval, servicing and collections.  Warehouse Lending business. Payments: Payments initiation, processing and settlement.  Includes credit cards Wholesale Banking: Cash management services (e.g., lockbox, fund management), merchant services, business banking services (deposits and loans), institutional trust and securities custody services to commercial and corporate institutions. Capital Markets, Wealth Management and Custody services: Middle & Back Office operations (Transfer Agency, Reconciliation, Accounting), Valuations and F&A business. Essential Functions:  New Business Development with assigned Quota Responsibilities include defining strategy, identifying key targets, developing system requirements, designing and prototyping, testing, training, defining support procedures and implementation. Deal leadership, contract negotiations and ensuring a successful delivery of services. Perform analysis and provide effective solutions for client issues and manage day-to-day client relationships. Identify key decision makers as well as ability to communicate effectively to C Level executives The ability to work both independently and as part of team Strong oral and written communication skills, including presentation skills Ability to effectively network and make cold calls Provide management reporting Strong problem solving and troubleshooting skills with the ability to exercise mature judgment   Desired Profile: 7+ years of  banking industry and/or consulting experience Experience in closing deals Understanding of business processes as well as key underlying technology and key vendor systems in banking space Project Lifecycle experience.  Lived at least one complete project from contract negotiations, scoping and planning requirements, transition, successful delivery and steady state operation. Willingness to travel to client and to off-shore locations Bachelor’s Degree (Masters Degree a +)

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Business Development KPO/BPO – Banking & Financial Services

Recent evidence suggest that the new normal for large law firms will differ from the pre-crash legal market.  Two weeks ago Hildebrandt Baker Robbins released its Peer Monitor Economic Index (PMI) for Q1 2010, which is flat – at the same level as 2009 Q4.  PMI is a function of demand (billable hours), productivity (hours per lawyer), rates, direct expenses, and overhead expenses.  Three components were down; the two that were up do not signal an upturn.  Rates were up but reflect only a change in mix, meaning lawyers with higher rates did more of the work. Productivity was also up but reflects fewer lawyers doing what work is available.  Hildebrandt concludes: “It is increasingly apparent that the fundamental economics of legal practice are undergoing a significant and permanent shift…. With slow revenue growth, firms will continue to focus on cost‐cutting to bolster profitability, and consequently aggressive cost controls are now the norm, no longer simply a short‐term response to weak demand and pricing…..

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BigLaw New Normal May Accelerate Changes in How Firms Support Lawyers

The EDRM 2010 Spring kick-off meeting this week in St. Paul Minnesota had nearly 100 attendees turnout, which may show that the electronically stored information (ESI) community is regaining some of its former optimism. The work of EDRM (The Electronic Discovery Reference Model) is done by a series of project teams and committees. Each reported on progress over the last twelve months and goals for the next year and I share some highlights here. Data Set Project One of the big challenges in e-discovery (EDD) is creating a large, freely available data set, against which lawyers and vendors can test software or develop new semantic or text handling algorithms. The Data Set project has soared past their initial goal of 100 GBs of unencumbered data and is currently offering three different sets of helpful test data. As reported last year, they are reaching out to other organizations to work for the betterment of the ESI community. Their very productive interaction with NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) has even resulted in receiving a copy of NIST’s source code used to run Hash values. (A hash is a mathematically generated ’signature’ for any digital file. Each is a limited and fairly small number of characters, irrespective of file size. Hashes are used to identify and compare files.) Data Set is supporting the TREC Project, the Text Retrieval Conference, run by NIST

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Update on Spring 2010 EDRM Meeting

In September 2009, my first write up was published on Golf Punk magazine. Under the helm of Editor, Benny Teo, Golf Punk is a magazine that celebrates the game of golf in signature Bunker Babe style! GOLFPUNK is an edgy and hip magazine that makes players look like Hollywood Stars. And they shoot the best fairway fashion on the planet! Read up on the hip and happening night life then, most of which are still relevant today. 1.382144 103.865577

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Country’s best damn 19 holes outside of Golf

By Babs Deacon The full version of the 2009 Socha-Gelbmann Electronic Discovery Report was finally published in December 2009 after exhaustive work by George Socha and Tom Gelbmann . It is the largest ever Socha-Gelbmann report; a compendium of trends, charts, and results spanning over 600 pages. The findings are fascinating and worth discussing, but so far surprisingly few in the industry have really given it much comment. Once again George and Tom provide the 35,000 foot view of the industry and a detailed market analysis.  The hotly contested vendor rankings have now been replaced by 250 pages of additional content. 2008-2009 Market – In-source / Out-source / Right-source Overall, the e-discovery market, like everything else in 2008, shrunk quickly and significantly. This is not surprising given that many law firms and corporations did cut back on their spending levels due to the recession

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E-Discovery Takeaways from the Socha-Gelbmann 2009 Report

Large US law firm WilmerHale announced Monday that it is opening a new business services center in the Dayton area, which will employ “approximately 187 employees from existing WilmerHale offices and new employees from the Dayton area.”  This may herald a new chapter in law firm middle office services, that is, how large firms go about providing the support lawyers need. WilmerHale explains that this will achieve “improved efficiencies for administrative teams and the firm, and reduce significant operational expenses.”  Only a few large law firms have so far opened support centers in low cost locations; these illustrate different operating and location options: Orrick has a large and established domestic low cost support center, its Global Operations Center in Wheeling, WV , which it owns and operates. White & Case and Baker McKenzie both have low cost offshore centers in Manila, which each firm owns and operates. Clifford Chance operates a center in Delhi, which Integreon advised and supported

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WilmerHale Reduces its Middle Office Costs

The knotty problem of cross-cultural communication is a tricky to untangle under any circumstances. Are your words understood as you mean them? Are you missing nuances when your listeners respond? And do you know all the cultural norms that overlie everything that is said on each side

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Managing Your Offshore Team in India Better – A Culture & Communications Challenge

The American Bar Association (ABA) is reviewing its Model Rules of Professional Conduct, including the rules applicable to legal process outsourcing (LPO).  Integreon recently submitted formal comments to the ABA and testified at an open hearing.  This post provides background on the ABA process, reports on a recent open meeting, and reproduces Integreon’s formal statement at the open meeting. Public Forum on Offshore Outsourcing of Legal Services (17 April 2010, NYC) The ABA Section of International Law held its 2010 Spring Meeting last week.  On Saturday, April 17th, there was an open meeting, Public Forum on Offshore Outsourcing of Legal Services .   The purpose of this session was “to gather viewpoints for the Section’s Leadership Council ["Council"], which is considering the formulation of policy recommendations to the larger ABA. The forum will include brief presentations from a panel involved with outsourcing issues and will also encourage audience statements and participation regarding views on outsourcing as they relate to legal practice.”  The Section also invited submission of written information using the same set of questions as the 20/20 Commission (see below). Background on the ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20 and Its Information Gathering Process A hand-out at the Public Forum summarizes the ABA goal nicely: “The ABA has long provided national leadership and vision in developing and interpreting standards of legal ethics and professional regulation. The speed with which technological advances and globalization affect lawyers, law firms, and clients requires thoughtful action and leadership by the Association because they present challenges that our ethics and professional regulatory rules may not yet fully address. Accordingly, in August 2009, ABA President Carolyn B. Lamm created the Commission on Ethics 20/20 to perform a thorough review of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct and the U.S. system of lawyer regulation and propose policy recommendations that will allow lawyers and law firms to better serve their clients, the courts, and the public in this new practice paradigm.  For additional information about the Commission and its work, please go to http://www.abanet.org/ethics2020/home.html “ The 20/20 Commission is seeking public comment.  Its home page states “The Commission is also interested in gathering information about domestic and international legal process outsourcing from lawyers, law firms, clients and outsourcing providers, and developed the following questions to do so.” In addition, the Commission is working with the ABA Section of International Law’s Outsourcing Task Force to gather information. ABA Section of International Law’s Outsourcing Task Force The hand-out also summarizes the Section’s goal nicely (see also Section web page ): “The purpose of the Section of International Law’s Outsourcing Task Force is to examine the international outsourcing of legal processes with the intention of proposing a Report with Recommendations to the House of Delegates on the subject. From solo practitioners to the largest law firms, the legal profession is increasingly embracing international legal process outsourcing to assist in providing legal services to clients

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ABA Reviewing Ethics Rules, Examining Legal Outsourcing

We read with interest a recently published Hildebrandt interview of Georgetown Law Professor Milton C. Regan, Jr on Outsourcing and the Impact on Legal Work . Professor Regan has thought long and hard about the future of law firms.  He co-organized the recent Georgetown Law conference on the future of law firms, summarized in our recent post Law Firm Evolution or Revolution .   At the conference, he presented ideas from a forthcoming journal article (details and link at end). The interview, like his presentation and paper, is thought-provoking.  We agree with much of it but take exception to a crucial point.   We disagree with his view that legal process outsourcers (LPO) can substitute for law firms, especially his view that LPOs can advise clients.  We start with this disputed point and then comment on several on which we do agree. Advice. Regan observes that once clients break down work into components, they “can find lower cost providers, either domestically or abroad, lawyers or non-lawyers, [and this] could hollow out a good portion of a firm’s operations… Right now, the standard distinction is that LPOs do routine work and law firms provide strategic advice.”  As LPOs understand their clients better, he suggests they will be “in a better position to provide advice.” As an LPO, we neither can nor should provide advice.  We cannot provide advice because we are not licensed to practice law; our providing advice would violate the unauthorized practice of law rules.  Moreover, we should not provide advice as a strategic business imperative.  Specifically, we work with law firms (and law departments).  So it is not in our interest to compete with firms.  Instead, we seek to free-up outside counsel to provide more and better advice. Rather than represent a competitive threat, LPOs allow firms to offer clients better value by outsourcing repetitive and routine work.  LPOs, with their expertise and investment in process engineering, quality control systems, and technology are well-positioned to perform these tasks.  But we are limited to tasks that lawyers can, practically and ethically speaking, delegate and supervise. Project Management. Relating to the topic of high-volume work, Hildebrandt asks Prof. Regan about project management.  He suggests PM is increasingly important for law firms.  We agree that firms need people “who can analyze the different steps involved in providing a service” and “to do cost accounting in a reasonably precise sort of way.”  Hiring the right personnel to decompose  work into steps and analyze profitability accurately will allow firms to identify routine, high volume tasks

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Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO): Law Firm Friend or Foe?

Two weeks ago the Georgetown Center for the Study of the Legal Profession at Georgetown Law School hosted a conference, Law Firm Evolution: Brave New World or Business As Usual? My colleagues Liam Brown (CEO) and Mark Ross (VP Legal Services), who also attended, agree that this rated as one of the best ever conferences about large law firms. Rarely have I seen such a good selection of topics and mix of panelists, who included managing partners, consultants, academics, and vendors.   Well-known presenters included  Ralph Baxter (Orrick), Mark Chandler (Cisco GC), Jeff Carr (FMC GC), Richard Susskind (writer and leading legal “futurist”), Dan DiPietro (Citi private banking ), and Adam Smith, Esq

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Law Firm Evolution or Revolution?

The legal market seldom adopts new things quickly. Though legal process outsourcing (LPO) is increasingly mainstream, lawyers are still climbing the adoption curve. They understandably want to gain comfort with this still somewhat new thing. One way to do so is to study it. By now, there have been countless LPO conferences in the both the US and UK. For lawyers considering offshore outsourcing, however, attending a conference in Manhattan or London is not the same as “seeing LPO in action.” The best way to do this is by going to India, the center of much of the offshore LPO industry. As an LPO provider, we know that visiting a delivery center in Mumbai, Delhi, or Manila is important to gain comfort. Many of our clients and prospects visit us in India to gain comfort. (They also visit us in Fargo, North Dakota and Bristol, England to gain comfort with onshore outsourcing). So we were delighted to learn that Red Bridge Strategy, Inc. has organized an LPO “Boot Camp”, that is, a field trip to India to learn more about legal process outsourcing. Red Bridge offers “consulting and advisory services to assist corporations and law firms in implementing optimal legal outsourcing solutions by drawing on our experience as technologists, management consultants and attorneys who have worked in both the U.S. and India.” The Boot Camp takes place May 18-20, 2010 in India and visits three leading LPOs: Integreon, Pangea3, and UnitedLex. Participants will also spend time with ValueNotes, one of  the leading analyst firms that follows the LPO market. Boot Camp topics include: Challenges & Opportunities in Discovery Outsourcing Ethical Considerations in Legal Outsourcing Who are the LPO Employees & Why is That Important? Legal Outsourcing: Comparing Vendors & Captives Working with Indian Teams: Differences & Similarities Legal Outsourcing Security & Confidentiality Integreon managers will present several sessions:  In Mumbai, Mark Ross presents on LPO ethics and Michael Sonsteng on A Multi-Shore Approach to Legal Outsourcing . Ron Friedmann will, in a pre-trip webinar, present on Challenges & Opportunities in Discovery Outsourcing . Registration and additional information is available at Global Legal Process Management Boot Camp . See also Red Bridge principal’s Matthew Sullivan’s Global Legal blog on LPO and legal services globalization.

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Learning about Legal Process Outsourcing: LPO Boot Camp

Totally amazed by how one girl can actually blame the boyfriend for a life time as he initiated the break up. But before that, she was the one wanted to leave first and giving all sorts of unreasonable attitude to HIS family members. And now, the people who revolves around her world thinks this guy is on the negative side. Do you know how evil you’re in the first place?….,, Forget it.

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KPO, elaborately also known as Knowledge Process Outsourcing , is one of the most boosting outsourcing services across the globe. KPO is a form of outsourcing, where a client located abroad outsources a very high-end knowledge process to the skilled workers located in the developed countries so as to reduce on costs as much as possible. Knowledge Process Outsourcing is such an industry that requires immense knowledge along with very good experience and expertise in this field, and so unlike other outsourcing units, KPO does require proper professional training to achieve excellence. Some of the Knowledge Process Outsourcing services that can be defined under this section are: domain based processes, providing business expertise, technology improvement, etc.

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Outsource KPO Services at Affordable Prices

Knowledge Service Provider is a relative term for KPO .But, I think the term KPO only in-glorify the types of job done by companies like iQuest Solution.These are jobs of very high quality and technicality rather then quantitative and rushy jobs done in BPO’s. iQuest Solution mainly deals in following services: Sales & Marketing Brand Perception Study Communication Effectiveness Study Market Landscape Assessment Distribution Assessment Sourcing Supplier Identification Supplier Benchmarking Supplier Assessment Strategy Market Entry Strategy Industry/ Market Newsletters Need Gap Analysis Competitors’ Assessment

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Knowledge Service Provider

Companies who rely on quantitative and qualitative data for their decision making can now approach BarcaTech with all their data collection and analysis requirements. The key knowledge process outsourcing deliverables offered by Barcatech go beyond product launch and measuring customer responses, they are used for market assessment and also to understand the effects of all the marketing inputs across the life cycle of a product or a brand. Access to information is what separates the market leaders from their competition. Access to accurate and necessary information provides clients with actionable insights which will allow them to gain an edge over their competition and also achieve their organizational benchmarks. Every requirement is unique and a lot of focus will be put on clients specific needs. BarcaTech begins by learning about the client’s company and also the surrounding business environment to understand the dynamics of the line of business. The key offerings are mentioned below but are not limited to: Primary and secondary data collection | Market Entry Studies | Market Expansion Studies |Competitive Landscape | Regulatory Impact Assessment | Business Partner Identification and Assessment | Company & Executive Profiles | Vendor Identification and Assessment | Product And Service Mapping. BarcaTech’s expertise in online/ field consumer surveys and one-on-one interviews has earned it a position of a premium knowledge process outsourcing destination

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BarcaTech Invites RFP For Knowledge Process Outsourcing

Lead generation is amongst one of the most outsourced business functions today. There are many lead generation/telemarketing companies telling you how beneficial and time saving it will be should you decide to outsource your ‘not so important’ aspect of generating sales leads to them and instead you should just focus on closure of deals. Lead generation is not only about saving money and time; it’s about making an everlasting first impression. Many companies have outsourced the most vital aspect of creating the first impression to an outside vendor who neither understands the company’s core values nor its products. A lead generation executive is the face of your company at your client’s end and there is more to lead generation than just reading out a cold call script like a no brainer. Any Lead generation program will give you good result for a short period of time. It’s in the long run that you will realize how effective it really has been. The tele-marketing sales industry has thrived on the prospects of volume. You are ultimately made to believe that more volume of calls & more volume of emails will yield more positive results

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Is Your Lead Generation Program Bleeding Your Company From the Inside?

Integreon’s Ron Friedmann’s recent blog post, Estimates for Legal Work and Legal Estimators (January 11, 2010), was cross-posted at Legal OnRamp (LOR), a collaboration system for in-house counsel and invited outside lawyers and third party service providers.  Several LOR members participated in a thought provoking commentary, which we reproduce below. Ron suggested in his blog post that General Counsel should increasingly request legal cost estimates from their outside counsel for both routine and complex legal tasks: “Consumers routinely seek estimates for many services, for example, buying a new roof, replacing an HVAC system, repairing a car, and even obtaining some medical services. The logic behind this should also drive general counsels to seek estimates for the cost of legal work.” Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) can facilitate the uptake of legal cost estimates and at a broader level, alternative fee arrangements (AFAs). The process driven approach to the delivery of legal support services in the LPO model supports AFAs. Integreon and other reputable LPOs take a systematic approach to delivering legal support services that blends process, technology and human resources. These techniques, however, are most effective when the legal function in question has been “unbundled”, or in other words, separated out into discrete, core, constituent tasks

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‘Estimates for Legal Work and Legal Estimators’ – Legal OnRamp Discussion