ERA Group Professional Services Solutions

Professional Services Solutions delivering Indirect, Procurement & Supplier Cost Optimisation

Months of Covid19 restrictions are having a transformational effect on the delivery of services and prospects for legal and professional services firms.

Firms have experienced an extreme “forced change” to working from home, a huge reliance on technology and a step-change from paper based processing systems.

It’s likely that few, if any, of these new abnormal characteristics will be reversed in any meaningful sense. Consequently, there are huge implications for the extent and use of office floor space in future, and whether the accommodation and direct employment of support services personnel in expensive premises will ever return.

Essentially we’ve witnessed a decade long pathway to modern methods of working concertinaed into just 4 months. Our focus is now on helping firms adapt, and to unchain themselves from contractual and practical legacies.

We’re expecting significant cash flow hits to firms in Q4 2020 and Q1 2021 which in turn will encourage an avalanche of merger and acquisition activity – particularly by cash rich legal services firms.

Download our Professional Services Solutions white paper today to explore a wide variety of helpful insights including specific actions you can take within your own business.

Insights

Case Studies

Introduction to ERA Group Professional Services

ERA Group provide a wide assortment of innovative, industry solutions to help our clients achieve their goals. Here, Jason Adderly, who leads our Professional Services group, explains how we can help your business and some of the key areas we focus on. To find out more about ERA Group Professional Services Solutions, download the full white paper today.

"As technology is not cheap, nor is change cost-free it’s important to remember that before investing in fancy new ideas, you should make sure that you’re maximising the benefits of the technologies you already own. Very often this is not the case."

Professional Services Industry Insights

Technology

The procurement of new technology can be a risky business. It’s important to accurately scope the outcomes desired and ensure these are adequately reflected in the schedule and SLA. The commercial aspects of contracts can also be opaque a when you’re buying a service for the first time.

Merger and Acquisition

In a mature market where growth is steady, but slow, many firms have sought to grow scale and capability through merger, acquisition or lateral hire.
Post-merger integration presents its own challenges of supplier fragmentation, inconsistent buyer behaviour and duplication of services which can be time-consuming to address. What’s more, bodies are often buried in the contractual arrangements of the firm you may be acquiring, which can lead to a nasty shock.

Regulatory Change

Professional Services firms are bound by strict regulations, so compliance and risk management are integral to all significant supplier decisions.
Supply chain management needs to address social challenges such as the Living Wage and Modern Slavery together with data and environmental protection all under scrutiny.

Howard Kennedy Case Study

“Most recently ERA forensically interrogated our Travel expenditure to draw out leakage and potential breaches of policy. The resulting analysis has brought much greater visibility to our expenditure and behaviour, and has allowed us to enter into new arrangements in full possession of the facts.” Alan Hutchinson, Facilities Director, Howard Kennedy. Howard Kennedy is a leading London law firm with 54 Partners and has particular strengths in Real Estate, Dispute Resolution, Corporate & Commercial Work. Following successive mergers, ERA’s Professional Services team first began working with Howard Kennedy in 2013. Facilities Director Alan Hutchinson was appointed in 2014 and together with ERA has piloted through several projects.

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"Where a firm lacks category-based procurement expertise firms often react, rather than plan, for an impending contract expiry and can be “vendor led” into inappropriate and costly arrangements."

To find out more about how our Professional Services Solutions can help your organisation, explore who we are which provides further information on how we work and how we can deliver Value Through Insight to your business.

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