Having spent over 30 years building and managing outsourcing and managed services businesses, I’ve seen these offerings evolve and I am confident …
To close off our series I wanted to capture the key take-aways and leave you with a set of steps to help start the journey to an agile legal operation.
Businesses use technology to automate manual processes and become more efficient, freeing people to focus on core responsibilities rather than devoting valuable hours to rote, repetitive tasks. While there’s been lots of worry that advances like AI might replace people entirely, the more likely outcome for legal teams is what’s already becoming normalised in other sectors and professions — machines complementing humans.
The in-house legal team legal operations model was initially developed as a means to reduce outside counsel spend. It subsequently evolved into trying solve the challenge of legal functions not being aligned with the business – that is, how can the legal department bring strategic value to the business?
The European Green Deal, COVID-19, the United Nations report from their Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and a renewed focus on social justice are putting corporate ESG commitments to the test. While boards naturally tried to reduce costs when lockdowns and commercial restrictions were in place, investors, customers, regulators and other critical stakeholders kept up the pressure to better serve employees, customers, suppliers and communities in which companies operate while advancing the greater good. Emphasising ESG in business plans has turned out to be sound strategy. Investment funds that focused on sustainability last year outperformed traditional funds[see footnote] in the first four months of the 2021.
When we talk about improving collaboration it usually means breaking out of departmental siloes and becoming more cross-functional. Learning from colleagues outside your own group and working more closely towards shared goals is vital, but I wonder if that definition of collaboration isn’t out-dated?
It is becoming more and more frequent that businesses need to review and evaluate specific provisions in a variety of their contractual arrangements – often with speed and decisiveness.
Commercial contract management requires a joined up, end-to-end process that addresses the needs of multiple business stakeholders. Some…
The senior leadership team of an organisation must firstly transform the prevailing business culture regarding contracts from a focus on administrative processes to an organisation and culture that recognises contracts as business assets. Greater investment should be placed in creating contracting competencies that work within a consistent framework. This framework should be compatible with, and have the capacity, agility and flexibility to support the overall business strategy and operational objectives. It is therefore essential that the ownership and accountability for the quality and integrity of the contracting process is measured by specific outcomes vis-à-vis these business objectives.
