Your free access to our white paper on PSF innovation

It is exciting to confirm the release of our professional service firm innovation white paper.

Titled – ‘How I learned to stop building faster horse carriages and love disruption’, the release is with the support of LexisNexis.

To access a free copy of the 3,000 word white paper click here - http://lexisnexis.com.au/media-centre/blog-articles/2016-June-17-How-I-learned-to-stop-building-faster-horse-carriages-and-love-disruption

As mentioned in previous posts, we began the journey to address many of the challenges of redefining the professional services firm business model over 10 years ago.

For many, the journey has started more recently and we believe it important to share our learnings.

In this regard, we are excited to be presenting at the 2016 ALPMA Summit, A Blue Print for Change, 7-9 September in Melbourne – see http://www.alpma.com.au/Summit

Before then, there is still time to register for our upcoming Roadshow that will be a full day example of our contribution in this space.

Download the brochure.

Watch the promo video below.

The Incumbents Dilemma

The impact of what Chris Anderson famously coined 'The Long Tail' is across virtually every industry and the disruptive aspects of the technology ultimately evidence themselves in what Clayton Christensen describes as the 'Innovator's Dilemma'; which is also referred to as the ‘incumbents dilemma'.

The theory means that only very rarely can an incumbent firm embrace and leverage disruptive solutions. This is largely because in non-technology driven businesses, there is only so much space available. In contrast, where there is effectively unlimited space, as on the internet, there are potentially high quality goods at every juncture of the long tail.

Furthermore, given that quality is entirely subjective, what is often defined by an incumbent firm as ‘low quality’ will be seen by others in the marketplace as in fact at least 'good enough' – if not actually high quality.

Critically, the barriers to entry, in terms of getting a solution to market and then allowing the market to determine whether there is any value, are constantly decreasing.

Similarly, industries such as photography, media, transport and book publishing have been radically re-engineered because of the ability to self publish electronic versions in the marketplace.

Many believe the professions are at the cusp of being similarly radically re-engineered.

Ultimately, the reason that incubation is such a powerful driver for wealth creation is that, from a customer's perspective, new ideas that actually work are far more valuable than the making (or manufacturing) of the idea.

As mentioned previously, we began the journey to address many of the challenges of redefining the professional services firm business model over 10 years ago.

For many, the journey has started more recently and we believe it important to share our learnings.

In this regard, we are excited to be presenting at the 2016 ALPMA Summit, A Blue Print for Change, 7-9 September in Melbourne – see http://www.alpma.com.au/Summit

Before then, our upcoming Roadshow will also be a full day example of our contribution in this space.

Download the brochure.

Watch the promo video below.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock

Outliers and the Professions

Last week’s post looked at Malcolm Gladwell's latest book.

Interestingly, Gladwell has previously also provided guidance on what types of factors may be of interest to the professions as the foundations of the time billing business model continue to be subject to intense scrutiny.

In particular, in Gladwell's book Outliers (see - http://www.amazon.com/Outliers-Story-Success-Malcolm-Gladwell/dp/0316017930), he analysed the 'perfect storm' that allowed the legendary New York legal firms to seemingly come from nowhere and become arguably the western world's most famous and successful law firms.

The analogies given the current changes facing the time billing professions should be clearly identifiable, given the wave of innovative business models enjoying exponential rates of growth across a myriad of industries.

The key factors identified by Gladwell as the criteria for the successful New York lawyers were as follows:

1. be born in 1930 (40 years of age in 1970 when the revolution first began and a 15 year period of experience in takeover work while others were ignoring it); 
2. be an outsider; 
3. have parents who did meaningful work; and 
4. have a strong dose of ingenuity and drive.

As mentioned previously, we began the journey to address many of the challenges of redefining the professional services firm business model over 10 years ago. In this regard, it is exciting to have been selected to present at the 2016 ALPMA Summit, A Blue Print for Change, 7-9 September in Melbourne – see - http://www.alpma.com.au/Summit

For many, the journey has started more recently and we believe it important to share our learnings. Our upcoming July roadshow will be a full day example of this.

For your limited opportunity that lasts less than 2 weeks to access special early bird pricing for our Roadshow, download the brochure here.

Fixed Pricing and Change Orders

Following a recent post, I had questions about how our fixed pricing approach operates where there is a significant change in the scope of work required.

In very broad terms, there are three relevant issues in relation to our approach in these types of situations, namely:

1. As we are specialists in the areas that we provide pricing on, we are normally able to anticipate the vast majority of likely work and can therefore provide the fixed pricing very early in the process; 
2. Where there is significant uncertainty about what might be required (for example in a sale transaction), we compartmentalise the process and scoping to provide fixed pricing for each step in the process before the work is performed; and 
3. In situations where there are substantial changes to the work required, we do not perform any additional work unless the client agrees in advance to the pricing for this additional work.

As mentioned previously, we began the journey to address many of the challenges of redefining the professional services firm business model over 10 years ago. 

For many, the journey has started more recently and we believe it important to share our learnings. Our upcoming July roadshow will be a full day example of this. 

Before then, our free webinar on 28 April will also share a number of insights (see - https://viewlegal.com.au/product/free-webinar-foundations-for-the-future-28-april-2016/)   

Image credit: Sebastien Wiertz cc