Author: Onit

WARUM AUCH DAS PROCUREMENT VON EINER LEGAL EBILLING SOFTWARE PROFITIERT 

Posted on July 6, 2018 by - Enterprise Legal Management

Die Vorteile von eBilling für Inhouse-Rechtsabteilungen sind gut dokumentiert. Durch digital erstellte Rechnungsdateien und dem automatisierten Verarbeiten und Prüfen von Rechnungen spart man mit einer eBilling-Software enorm an Verwaltungsaufwand. Externe Rechtsausgaben lassen sich in Echtzeit verfolgen, wodurch die Einhaltung von Richtlinien und Budgets sichergestellt ist. 

Weniger bekannt ist, wie das Legal Procurement – also die juristische Beschaffungsfunktion – davon profitieren kann. Die Legal Spend Management-Software erfasst detaillierte Line Item-Informationen zu Projekten, Mattern und Rechnungssummen sowie Zeitplänen, Timekeepern und Ausgaben, die mit dem UTBMS-Codesatz für Aufgaben, Aktivitäten und Ausgaben codiert sind. So entsteht ein umfangreicher Datensatz, auf dessen Basis Analysen und zukünftige Entscheidungen getroffen werden können. Die leistungsstarken Reporting- und Analysefunktionen in modernen eBilling-Lösungen können auf folgende Weise genutzt werden: 

1. BENCHMARKING DER LEISTUNG VON DIENSTLEISTERN MIT EBILLING 

EBilling stellt sicher, dass die Abrechnungsdatenpunkte für alle Dienstleister konsistent eingegeben werden. Dies ermöglicht einen genauen Vergleich von Leistungskennzahlen wie z. B. Timekeeper-Raten, Erfahrungsstufen, Zeit für die Bearbeitung eines Projekts sowie der Einhaltung von Budgets und Billing Guidelines. Einige Lösungen erlauben es dem Inhouse Team sogar, die Kanzlei nach geleisteter Arbeit zu bewerten. Das Benchmarking von Metriken gibt dem Legal Procurement umfassende Einblicke in den Service und den Wert, den sie von jedem Dienstleister erhalten und führt so zu offenen und ehrlichen Gesprächen. 

2. DATEN FÜR ZUKÜNFTIGE JURISTISCHER KAUFENTSCHEIDUNGEN 

Mittels den vom Legal Spend Management-System generierten Daten lässt sich leicht überprüfen, ob die Ressourcen für juristische Arbeit richtig eingesetzt werden. Auf lange Sicht wird das Legal Procurement durch die umfassende Analyse von vergangenen Projekten und die daraus resultierenden Daten und Vergleiche die richtige Einkaufsstrategie erkennen. Dies funktioniert umso besser, wenn das Legal Procurement offen mit den Anbietern über die Verwendung dieses Ansatzes spricht und ihre Ziele mitteilt. So können sich externe Anbieter leichter auf die Erwartungen an sie konzentrieren. 

3. PRÜFEN UND UMSTRUKTURIEREN VON BESTEHENDEN PANELS 

Panel-Reviews können zeit- und ressourcenintensiv sein. Oft fehlen zuverlässige Daten, um das Niveau der Erfahrung, der Leistung und des Fachwissens der einzelnen Kanzleien zu vergleichen. Auch mangelt es an Ausgabendaten – wodurch es schwierig wird, die Methoden der Leistungserbringung zwischen den Anbietern zu verfolgen. Hier schafft ein eBilling-System Abhilfe und reduziert so die Ressourcen, die für die Durchführung eines Reviews benötigt werden und erzielt zusätzlich ein sicheres Ergebnis. Ein möglicher positiver Effekt eines Panel-Reviews ist die Reduzierung der Panel-Größe. Dabei wir die Arbeit auf eine geringere Anzahl von Kanzleien verteilt – wodurch Preise in der Regel deutlich gesenkt werden. Hierbei gilt es aber unbedingt sicherzustellen, dass kein Mangel an spezialisierten Beratern im Panel aufkommt. Die Abwägung möglicher Risiken kann zu Konflikten zwischen dem Einkauf und der Rechtsabteilung führen und ist, ohne die von der Legal Spend Management-Software generierten Daten, viel schwieriger zu bewerten. 

4. PREISE UND BEDINGUNGEN NEU VERHANDELN 

Durch den Vergleich von Honoraren und Stundensätzen und durch Leistungs-Reviews von Dienstleistern kann das Legal Procurement mit einer Vielzahl von Daten in die Verhandlungen gehen, durch welche Kosten gesenkt werden sowie  wertvollere Beziehungen zu externen Anbietern aufgebaut werden. Kanzleien haben oft keinen Zugang zu solch detaillierten Daten und sind vielleicht von den Ergebnissen überrascht. Sie wollen zufriedene Mandanten und sind offen für diese Gespräche. 

Die oben genannten Vorteile führen nicht nur zu Einsparungen und einer sicheren Entscheidungsfindung, sondern schaffen auch ein gesundes Wettbewerbsumfeld innerhalb der Branche. Die Standards für alle Firmenkunden werden so angehoben und der maximale Wert von Rechtsdienstleistern wird sichergestellt. Wenn die Procurement-Abteilung bei den Finanzmanagement-Aktivitäten hilft, kann sich die Rechtsabteilung auf ihre externen rechtlichen Geschäftsbeziehungen konzentrieren, was wiederum die interne Beziehung zwischen der Rechtsabteilung und dem Einkauf verbessert, da sie gemeinsam an dem Erreichern der Unternehmensziele arbeiten. Fordern Sie eine Demo an, um die Reporting- und Analysefunktionen von unserer Legal Spend Management-Lösung BusyLamp eBilling.Space in Aktion zu sehen. 

Aus dem englischen Original-Blog übersetzt. 

How Technology is Transforming the Legal Ecosystem

Posted on June 27, 2018 by - Business Process Management

In our new white paper, Legal Operations: Transforming the Legal Ecosystem, we explore the world of legal operations and how technology is changing the landscape.

There is increasing pressure to run the legal department like a business. General counsel generally do not have the time to make this happen. This is where legal operations professionals come in — to handle the management of vendors, systems, strategic planning, technology, knowledge, financial issues and the myriad other tasks that plague the department. Legal operations is all about optimizing the legal department’s ability to grow the company. Legal operations is a multi-disciplinary function that optimizes legal services delivery to a business or government entity by focusing on twelve core competencies, as seen in the graphic below. The competencies are divided among three levels: foundational, advanced and mature. Almost every legal department function is covered, including vendor management, technology and process support, service delivery and litigation support.

CLOC's 12 Core Competencies

Driving efficiencies and containing costs are two key reasons that legal operations is important and is growing so quickly. Its impact now and in the future is almost like a tidal wave that’s hitting legal departments across the industry; but in the best of ways. Legal operations professionals are now managing outside vendors, implementing technology, overall legal spend and many other aspects of the legal department. And it’s not only in the Fortune 500 companies (as it was a few years ago); smaller companies are saddling up for the ride of their lives as well. Many believe, and rightfully so, that legal operations will be responsible for some of the biggest changes in the legal ecosystem in years to come.

Download this white paper to learn more about:

  • Market trends and the future of the industry
  • How technology is driving change
  • Onit’s strategic alignment with CLOC
  • How Onit’s platform can help legal departments gain a lasting digital transformation

 

7 Best Practices of Business Process Automation and Digital Transformation

Posted on June 19, 2018 by - Business Process Management, Digital Transformation

As corporate legal departments search for better ways to work, the topic of business process automation (BPA) and digital transformation is becoming hotter than ever. Improving efficiency, exceptional user experience and reducing costs are top priorities for savvy companies and should be strategic priorities.

There are numerous best practices out there in the world of BPA and digital transformation. Here are some of our top ones to consider: 1

  1. Start with what you have. Already have a few processes outlined? Great! Start building from there. Are all your processes just “in your head”? That’s okay, too. Over the course of a typical business day, start writing down everything you do. Soon, you’ll start to notice process patterns emerging, as well as common bottlenecks.
  2. Don’t assume automation will fix all your problems. Yes, automating common processes can save you time and money, but only if the processes you have in place are effective. A bad process will not improve with automation.
  3. Root out waste. Look for the root cause of the business problem to discover and nullify inefficiencies.
  4. Assess what you have. Log your current BPA capabilities and note what is missing regarding requirements, 
so you only invest in missing technologies and avoid unnecessary duplication.
  5. Start with business needs and build out. Track the business requirements and use them to build your functional requirements accordingly. Use functional needs to develop technical requirements and assign these to your existing technology sets.
  6. Go mobile. Investigate mobile and cloud technologies, including mobile apps, that may provide solutions for your present needs and help stakeholders and remote staff in your processes. Take the time before implementing these technologies to understand how they will align with your current enterprise applications. Remember, BPA can also play the role of the integrating mechanism.
  7. Build in real-time optimization. Adopt an ongoing improvement program that will continuously monitor and optimize changes in real time. BPA is not a “one and done” project. Successful BPA requires an ongoing, cross-functional effort from all stakeholders.

To learn more about business process automation, download our white paper.

1 Brian Hughes: “How Business Process Management Will Change Your Small Business,” Huffington Post, July 2016

Learn Why Clients Love Onit!

Posted on June 6, 2018 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events, Contract Lifecycle Management

Onit’s new company video encapsulates what Onit is all about: we love our product and empowering customers with a better way to work. It also offers a snapshot of how Onit is positioned to help businesses and legal departments create better processes with smarter operations and technology. Of course, we wanted our new video to “look” and “sound” great, but we can back up every claim. The words in the video are based on solid facts and resounding customer success.

Lucky for us, Onit’s clients are not shy about telling the world about our products. Have a look at some of the things they say about us:

 

Anna-Lisa Corrales, General Counsel, North America Jaguar Land Rover

“What’s unique about the way Onit solutions work in the background with different data sets is that as you decide different categories of data, you can add these tabs along a horizontal line. It was just differently organized than other systems we had seen, and we really liked it, because all of the information was at our fingertips. And in today’s highly connected world, where information is spread across devices and in the cloud, that is more important than ever.” Read more in this case study.

 

Gary Tully, Legal Operations, Gilead Sciences

“One of the cool technologies that I think doesn’t get a lot of press is workflow technology. We see this in titles like Thinksmart and Onit. When I think about the purpose of legal operations, it’s to deliver legal services efficiently and effectively… And legal operations professionals are aligned with identifying redundant processes and recommending improvements. Workflow technology is a way to automate those processes, reduce redundancy and execute quickly.”  Read more in this Corporate Counsel article.

 

Lauren Giammona, Director of Operations, Business Affairs & Legal, PayPal

“PayPal is a technology company with many legal department employees familiar with technology. It needed a tool that was powerful rather than just easy to adopt – a tool that augments the people and processes in place rather than displaces them. We really focused on a system that provided more of the back-end and the analytics that we needed. … We sacrificed some of the UI, the ease-of-use, and some of our law firms liking the old system better to get to the data that we needed. The team enhanced spend management capabilities to enable the ops team to work smarter, depreciating matter management systems like spreadsheets and SharePoint lists in favor of one ELM system of record that actually allowed for creating common processes and automation.” Read more in this case study.

 

David Cambria, Global Director of Operations – Law, Compliance and Government Relations ADM

“The creation of the ADM Law Firm Alliance was complex, and it was achieved in no small part through the power of technology – including a major upgrade to the company’s matter-management system (by Onit), with provided sorely-needed data to help make better spend decisions.” Read more in this case study.

 

Dana McDonald, Senior Counsel, Under Armour

“Onit has proven a great partner both in terms of its product features and the customer service support the Onit team provides. Onit provides a very nimble product that can be quickly modified and adapted for various business needs. This is not the case with the other products we considered in this space. My experience of Onit is that they are motivated not only to sell their product at the outset but to continue to improve the product and ensure customer success in the adoption and use of the product. It’s been a great experience so far.”

 

Those are just a few of our client testimonials, and the theme is almost always the same. Onit provides a nimble, powerful, cutting-edge product that empowers the customer with a better way to work – because it’s designed for the way people work. Our products have reached this rare level of excellence not only because of hard work and adhering to best practice, but because over the years customers have told us exactly what they want.

Onit Client Archer Daniels Midland Wins Corporate Counsel Best Legal Department of the Year

Posted on May 22, 2018 by - Company News and Events

Corporate Counsel has announced the honorees of the 2018 Best Legal Departments awards, and long-time Onit client Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) has won! We’re especially happy for them since Onit had the opportunity to get to know and work closely with ADM’s David Cambria and his team on a technology implementation in 2017. As explained in the June 2018 edition of Corporate Counsel magazine, “The creation of the ADM Law Firm Alliance was complex, and it was achieved in no small part through the power of technology – including a major upgrade to the company’s matter-management system, which provided sorely-needed data to help make better spend decisions.”

ADM also won several awards last year, including the ACC Value Challenge, the Buying Legal Council Best Use of Technology Award,  and the Transatlantic Legal Award. Corporate Counsel selected outstanding corporate legal departments from around the country that stood out from their peers. The winners profiled will also be honored at The American Lawyer Industry Awards reception on December 5.

Read more about ADM’s win in the article, “ADM’s Legal Department Has Pulled Off a Massive Turnaround, a Little at a Time” in the June 2018 issue of Corporate Counsel.

5 Ways a Legal Hold Solution Can Help You

Posted on May 17, 2018 by - Contract Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Legal Management

Unfortunately, legal holds are here to stay and the best we can do is to have a trustworthy process to handle them. But it takes a little digging to find just the right software for your legal department, and it will be time well-spent.

The best legal hold solutions help corporate legal departments notify custodians of their duty to preserve information in a timely manner and guarantee compliance with this duty. Highly intuitive, easily mastered “process” platforms allow team members to gain real-time access to the status of collection requests, know when actions were issued, which tasks are in progress and which legal actions require immediate attention.

The tool should also create comprehensive dashboard views, so teams can see when a custodian leaves an organization, so they can enable email archiving or suspend the destruction of data.

Beyond those basic features, a legal hold solution should be able to help you to:

  1. Avoid significant fines
  2. Streamline and simplify the legal holds process
  3. Create new holds and distribute notices to all legal hold custodians
  4. Gain visibility into all legal hold activity to minimize company risk and increase defensibility
  5. Ensure all relevant data is properly collected and preserved

In our white paper, “Is it Worth the Risk?  How to Implement a World Class Defensible Legal Hold Process” we discuss the significance of legal holds in today’s corporate environment, why you need gold-standard legal hold automation software, and strategies to fuel your company’s path toward a robust legal hold process.

Download this white paper to discover how a cutting edge legal hold platform allows team members to gain real-time access to the status of collection requests, know when actions were issued, which tasks are in progress and which legal actions require immediate attention.

Our white paper offers the following insights:

  • Why you need a world class legal hold process
  • A little history of recent landmark legal hold cases and why they should concern you
  • Current best practices of legal holds
  • Essential features to know before shopping for legal hold software
  • The problems associated with using antiquated or inappropriate legal hold tools
  • Onit’s intuitive, agile and quickly deployable legal hold solution where user experience is top priority

A powerful legal hold solution offers a quick and highly cost-effective way to supercharge your automated business processes, as well as your bottom line. Reduce the ever-present risk of costly court cases. The stakes are high, and the time to act is now.

Onit Marketing Team Wins 2018 AMA Crystal Award!

Posted on May 15, 2018 by - Company News and Events

We’re excited to announce that Onit’s marketing team won a prestigious American Marketing Association (AMA) Crystal Award at the bustling American Marketing Association gala event last week in Houston! We won with our entry, “Onit Website Transformation,” which showcased our new website, and demonstrating how much more effective it is over our previous site. Thanks to everyone on the team for their hard work to make this happen!

The Crystal Awards committee sets criteria, tabulates results, and certifies finalists and winners. A select panel of esteemed marketing professionals from across the country acts as judges. Past participants have been senior marketers from other AMA chapters, Ogilvy & Mather, FedEx, Accenture, University of Michigan, and more. All entries are judged at least twice. Judges make all decisions regarding eligibility, finalists, and winners. Each entry must include answers to the five questions below, 800-word maximum for each question.Each spring, AMA Houston hands out Crystal Awards to the Texas’ top marketers in categories ranging from print and radio spots to website design, social media advertising and everything in between. The awards gala is the largest marketing event in Houston and is attended by more than 650 marketing professionals from almost every industry in Houston.

2018 Corporate Legal Operations Institute in the Spotlight

Posted on May 14, 2018 by - Company News and Events

This year’s Corporate Legal Operations Institute in Las Vegas once again received its fair share of attention. There were many presentations spanning the four-day event, and reporters from Legaltech News and Corporate Counsel were on site to cover them. We’d like to share a few of the stories that came out of the event (in chronological order of publishing).

The CLOC Institute is the largest gathering of corporate legal professionals in the world focused on optimizing the delivery of legal services to businesses. The energized, inclusive and open community they’ve created welcomes industry veterans and newcomers, allowing attendees to create a breadth and depth of connections not available anywhere else. With more than 75 curated educational sessions, provided by industry leaders, the CLOC Institute offers unrivaled opportunities to learn, share, and connect.

Onit Client Jaguar Land Rover a Finalist for Transatlantic Legal Department of the Year

Posted on May 8, 2018 by - Company News and Events

Onit is excited to announce that Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is a finalist for the Transatlantic Legal Department of the Year award! JLR was nominated due to their success in using technology to spearhead the transformation of their legal department.

JLR collaborated with Onit to implement cutting-edge technology in their legal department. For the first time, JLR has comprehensive legal matter information at its fingertips and the tools to easily manage and report on this data. JLR’s legal technology makeover empowered them to do more than just billing and matter management. By partnering with Onit, they drove change in their legal department with process efficiencies and better managed their legal operations and legal spend.

The Transatlantic awards recognize excellence in handling transatlantic matters across the key areas of corporate, finance and disputes, as well as highlighting law firm innovation, commitment to pro bono, outstanding transatlantic strategy, and in-house leaders. The winners will be announced at a gala dinner in London on June 14, 2018

Last year, Onit client Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) won the prestigious Transatlantic award for designing and implementing sustainable processes and systems to “make the complex simple.” ADM’s global rollout allowed real-time access to legal spend and offered predictive metrics and reporting dashboards. Overall, the company reduced its outside legal spend by more than one-third and reduced volatility by using fixed fees and other alternative fee arrangements.

Onit CEO Eric M. Elfman a Finalist for Regional EY Entrepreneur of the Year

Posted on May 4, 2018 by - Company News and Events

Onit is excited to announce that our CEO Eric M. Elfman is a finalist for the Entrepreneur of The Year® 2018 Award in the Gulf Coast Area! The awards program recognizes entrepreneurs who are excelling in areas such as innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their businesses and communities. Eric was selected as a finalist by a panel of independent judges. Award winners will be announced at a special gala event on June 14th 2018 at the Marriott Marquis Houston.

Now in its 32nd year, the program has expanded to recognize business leaders in more than 145 cities and more than 60 countries throughout the world. Regional award winners are eligible for consideration for the Entrepreneur of The Year National competition. Award winners in several national categories, as well as the Entrepreneur of The Year National Overall Award winner, will be announced at the Entrepreneur Of The Year National Awards gala in Palm Springs, California, on November 17, 2018. The awards are the culminating event of the Strategic Growth Forum®, the nation’s most prestigious gathering of high-growth, market-leading companies.

EY Entrepreneur of the YearEntrepreneur Of The Year®, founded by EY, is the world’s most prestigious business awards program for entrepreneurs, chosen from an independent panel of judges including entrepreneurs and prominent leaders from business, finance, and the local community. The program makes a difference through the way it encourages entrepreneurial activity among those with potential and recognizes the contribution of people who inspire others with their vision, leadership and achievement. As the first and only truly global awards program of its kind, Entrepreneur of The Year celebrates those who are building and leading successful, growing and dynamic businesses, recognizing them through regional, national and global awards programs in more than 145 cities and more than 60 countries.

To learn more about Entrepreneur of the Year, click here.