Reduce your firms administrative burden during onboarding by process automation

n spite of the compelling reasons that motivate firms to move to a centralised process model, many struggle with staffing decisions or securing the buy-in to support a change. In a recent webinar poll of general counsel and conflicts and risk professionals from firms of all sizes, 33% were not yet centralised and said they’d like to adopt the model. But unsurprisingly, there was a split between those without management budget or buy-in and those unsure of the best way to design and implement it.

Many firms looking to centralise are considering significant investments in technology. There are several key vendors in the legal technology market, particularly for onboarding clients and new business intake. But investment in technology isn’t necessarily inexpensive.

Make the benefits known
Making a case for investment is about bringing the benefits to the attention of senior management. In a partner-driven firm, it isn’t easy to justify significant expenditure that erodes partners’ capital. You need to be able to demonstrate the kinds of benefits a product can offer.

Embed intelligence in the process
One good example, which many firms are pursuing, is the ability to embed third-party technology in the client-onboarding process. Manual data retrieval processes are quite a heavy administrative burden during the onboarding process, but a lot of tasks can be reduced through process automation. For example, firms can embed system access to corporate tree and beneficial owners’ data through third-party providers such as Bureau van Dijk (BvD) and Dun & Bradstreet (D&B). This can build a strong business case. The goal is to leverage information, but in a seamless way, so you can easily surface that information to people throughout the process. And the technology these days is a lot more flexible and adaptable to changes in business needs.

Automate where possible
Another example is meeting outside counsel guidelines. Firms may spend many hours a year trying to straighten out and understand this process. If it can be embedded within the client-onboarding process, it’s a lot more straightforward and easier to understand, and you develop consistency. There are suitable technologies that allow firms of all sizes to manage the process very efficiently as part of the client-onboarding process.

Investing in technology, risk model, and your staffing strategy is critical for the operational success of your business processes. Regardless of the approach and route to success, demonstrate that investment will enable the firm to leverage additional information and make the process that much more efficient.

This article was taken from Briefing November/December 2020 – Alert to change. Read the full publication here.