© allen & overy 2014 1 sue edgar, information professional sarah fahy, global head of...

© Allen & Overy 2014 1

Sue Edgar, Information ProfessionalSarah Fahy, Global Head of Libraries, A&O LLP

Delivering value

© Allen & Overy 2014

The Agenda

– User expectations

– Financial management

– Communicating value


The value proposition

I achieve greater value than the price paid: a positive return

Dependent upon:

–Culture of firm

–Credibility of service


Culture

A collection of self sustaining patterns of behaviour, feeling, thinking and believing; the patterns that determine

“the way we do things around here” 1


Culture: tell tale signs

– Pace of work– Normal working hours– How much focus is on short term goals vs. long term

goals?– Competition vs. cooperation– Team vs. Individual orientation– Creative vs. analytical– Acknowledgement and praise?– Ethics and stated values


Credibility

– Utility: what is delivered is fit for purpose– Warranty: the service is dependable; reliable, fit for use– Meet customer expectations


The user audit: preparation

– Review your offering– The invisible activities

– The visible

– Put a value (cost) on the activities– How long does each task take?– What is it costing the firm?

– Select your audience– Cross section from each team

– Cross section of seniority


The user audit: engaging with users

– Face to face

– Start with the champions and regular users

– See most senior people last: reflect back to them your findings from their team

– Ask:– Of the services provided which do you value?– Is it worth the amount it costs?– What would you be happy to do without?– What additional service would be valued?


The user audit: promote your value

– Tell your story, e.g.:– X% of Library resource is used by your Practice

– X% of the information budgets is allocated to your Practice

– The Library completes XX enquiries a week/month

– The average length of an enquiry is X minutes

– We do this……

This is an opportunity to promote your value to them


The user audit: implementing results

– Feedback your findings to the senior representatives of each group.– Give a value score – x% of sample thought this service of

value

– Note the services with low value scored: recommend they stop

– Note additional services required from this or other groups

– Recommend a new service offering based on your findings

Face to face is best: provide service summary beforehand.

Objective = to agree new services and cancel under valued services


Achievements

– Understand the needs of your users– Introduced users to the cost of services– Mandate to make changes– Promoted your services– Engaged

Established value as a tangible concept


Financial Management: culture

– Understand the culture– Structure

– Sensitivities

– Find your voice– under / over spends

– % differences


Financial Management: budget management

– Headcount– Appropriate alignment of skills to task

– Resource aligned to value

– Information product budget– Establishing processes

– Zero based contracts

– First offer and achieved offer


Communicating value

– Language should reflect your firms culture– Establish regular communications– Information costs: on-going management– Annual reporting


Communication is an essential tool for the promotion of your professional capabilities and services.

Year 1

This review aims to showcase how the information team play an important role on many assignments, often providing the evidence and intelligence gathering that forms the foundation of deliverables to the firm’s clients. The teams have done just that in the last year. It also gives you, our internal client, an insight into what deliverables we can produce and what great value the teams cited, have experienced.

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Year 3 Last year our theme for the Annual Review was innovation and quality, which during the last twelve months has been implemented and demonstrated by the global team in how they deliver work to you, our internal clients. To get feedback from you on how we are performing on the quality dimension, we conducted a global survey this spring. The results show a significant increase in your view of our quality: 90% satisfaction rate with service delivery and quality of results, and 80% say we save you time and resources.


Communicating value: metrics

– Produce standard metrics– Acceptable levels of “busyness”

– Productivity

– Compare with previous months/periods

– Look at who uses your service/ how much

– Look at average length of enquiry/ trends

Productivity

Allocation of staff time to task

This months time per staff member

How busy are we? Operating within stated staff levels?

Complexity of workTime on task/volume time per instance

Compare to previous month/quarter . Increasing/decreasing?


Communicating value: potential

– Highlight particular achievements of your team– Use of unique skills

– Contribution to projects/initiative

– Value these contributions– Number of hours = value


References

1.Culture and the Chief Executive; Jon Katzenbach and DeAnn Aguirre.

Strategy + Business, 28 May 2013.

© Allen & Overy 2014 19

Questions?

These are presentation slides only. The information within these slides does not constitute definitive advice and should not be used as the basis for giving definitive advice without checking the primary sources.

Allen & Overy means Allen & Overy LLP and/or its affiliated undertakings. The term partner is used to refer to a member of Allen & Overy LLP or an employee or consultant with equivalent standing and qualifications or an individual with equivalent status in one of Allen & Overy LLP’s affiliated undertakings.

© allen & overy 2014 1 sue edgar, information professional sarah fahy, global head of...

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