Organisations and service providers only used to connect with their clients on a surface level. Most information within a commercial organisation was not shared with clients – but clients now demand closer collaboration and transparency of information from their service providers.
An example is the increasing tendency for lawyers’ costs to be put on a secure extranet for a client to monitor. This networking will move towards a structure where an organisation, its suppliers, clients and business partners will be linked in a matrix of relationships and interfaces. These loose confederations will become increasingly virtual – as opposed to a ‘bricks and mortar’ business – allowing an infinite variety of enterprises.
The new working environment
More law firms are responding to the demands of solicitors to allow them to operate remotely and with less commitment to the firm.
Many lawyers have found travelling to work every day in cramped conditions, and in a complex social environment, a distraction from focusing on delivering timely information to clients.
The traditional lockstep does not always motivate younger practice members.
The increasing trend in society towards the deconstruction of the corporation is likely to find its way into a profession as individualistic as the legal sector. Looser relationships are likely to increase.
Formed in 1993, Davis & Co is based around a structure of flexible multi-disciplinary relationships, focusing on business-to-business advice in high added-value areas such as mergers and acquisitions, IP and business restructuring.
The open architecture of the organisation means that we have business partnerships with bodies around the world including internet companies, accounting firms, publishers, strategic consultants and risk managers.
We work with them to deliver a new configuration of services. Sometimes their staff will work under the Davis & Co brand name; sometimes we will work under theirs; and sometimes we will form a separate joint venture.
All of our 40 or so solicitors operate remotely in private offices at their homes or elsewhere, largely in the Southeast of England. This creates a market-oriented organisation, where lawyers liaise more with clients, prospects and business partners rather than their colleagues.
This has resulted in us identifying areas of service outside pure legal information, such as the project management of international mergers & acquisitions and a secure extranet to support this.
