How Competitive Intelligence Helps Professional Service Firms Succeed

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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
~ featuring ~

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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.
agibson@annleegibson.com
Twitter.com/@annleegibson
www.annleegibson.com
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Questions, Commentary & Content

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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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Professional
Services
Industries
Legal Engineering
Management
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 Firms
Source: Accounting Today
Owner Partners 16,900
All Professionals 128,300
Staffing Leverage 6.6 : 1
Revenue Per Professional $390,000
Top 100 US Law Firms
2013 Revenue
100 Largest US Law Firms
Source: The American Lawyer
Owner Partners 20,100
All Lawyers 92,000
Staffing Leverage 3.6 : 1
Revenue Per Lawyer $841,000
Industry Consolidation Varies Greatly
Total Revenue $77 B
Top Firm $2.5 B
25th Firm $975 M
100th Firm $310 M
75% of Revenue 53 firms
Top 100 US Accounting Firms
2013 Revenue
$0 $5.0 $10.0 $14.0 $0 $2.5
Total Revenue $50 B
Top Firm $13.9 B
25th Firm $450 M
100th Firm $31 M
75% of Revenue 4 firms

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PS Firms Differ from Other Enterprises
1. Owners
Many … highly educated … empowered … elevator assets …
not normal
2. Cultures
Traditional … hierarchical … relationship-based … lofty
3. Regulation
Licensed … governmental protections … ethical codes
4. Leadership and management
Home-grown … unprofessionalized … political
5. Decision-making processes
Slow … 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

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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
1. 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.com
Email: agibson@annleegibson.com
Blog: www.lawfirmci.blogspot.com
Twitter: @annleegibson

How Competitive Intelligence Helps Professional Service Firms Succeed

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