Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2015 Iridium Technology LLC Law Firm Best Practices Solutions (And biggest mistakes to avoid!) Profitability

Thank. You. ILTA!

Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2015 Iridium Technology LLC In 60 minutes… 60 … and cover more than 15 best practices topics … we will give you a quick introduction to Law Firm Profitability 15+ AGENDA If you guys are up for it, we will cover advanced content in a Session #2 and possibly a Session #3 2-3

Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2015 Iridium Technology LLC Profitability is a huge focus for Iridium Working with our clients to identify and solve core issues We want to drive the conversation Two Offers Profitability White Paper Free Profitability Consultations WHY ME? Profitability White Paper

Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2015 Iridium Technology LLC 4 (1) What is a cube? (2) Implementation overview and decisions (3) Use cases (4) The revenue side of the profitability equation With best practices and biggest mistakes mixed in… Sections

Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2015 Iridium Technology LLC What. Is. Cube. Anyways? a. SECTION #1

A cube is… Another way of storing your data… … but optimized for fast queries and reporting Topic-specific Nothing to be scared of! Let’s take a peek… Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2015 Iridium Technology LLC Demo: Revenue Cube

Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2015 Iridium Technology LLC SECTION #2 Implementation. Overview. and Decisions.

BI Project Drivers Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2014 Iridium Technology LLC Improve Firm Performance and Profitability Dashboards Improve Individual Performance Profitability Ad-hoc Analysis Improve Decision- making Clarify Vision and Goals Improve Accountability Improve Firm Performance

Where are you with Profitability Today? Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2014 Iridium Technology LLC Lots of variations on this spectrum Nothing But we always wanted to do that! Crawling Walking Process Multiple Slices Yearly “Belief” Running Robust Process All Slices Every Month “Certainty” Excel-based Few Slices Yearly “Voodoo”

Profitability Project Drivers Increase firm focus on profitability at all levels Identify low margin clients and take corrective action – quickly Identify less profitable business units Drive business strategy Improve pricing Make decisions with accurate data More billable hours does not guarantee maximized profitability Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2015 Iridium Technology LLC

How do you get Profitability Analysis? Supporting Data: Assignments, Hours, FTEs Supporting Data: Assignments, Hours, FTEs Input Expense (2): Payroll Input Expense (2): Payroll Input Expense (1): PMS Input Expense (1): PMS Input Revenue: PMS Input Revenue: PMS Ad-hoc Analysis Ad-hoc Analysis Dashboards KPIs Vendor Reports Vendor Reports Custom Reports Custom Reports ?

Modeling Profitability (Example) Profitability “Engine” Allocate Rent by Rank-Weighted FTEs Supporting Data: Assignments, Hours, FTEs Supporting Data: Assignments, Hours, FTEs Input Expense (2): Payroll Input Expense (2): Payroll Input Expense (1): PMS Input Expense (1): PMS Input Revenue: PMS Input Revenue: PMS Allocate IT Expense based on Billable Dollars Allocate Secretary Salary based on % Shared Allocate Partner Comp as direct expense Assign Timekeeper Salary as direct expense (etc.) Ad-hoc Analysis Ad-hoc Analysis Dashboards KPIs Vendor Reports Vendor Reports Custom Reports Custom Reports

Loading Data From Multiple Sources Is all the information you need available in your PMS? Other external data sources  Payroll data  FTE/Assignment spreadsheets  External expenses / foreign office transactions  Exception data Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2015 Iridium Technology LLC Best Practices: No limits on external data. Period. Strong validation required, mapping of primary keys

Granularity for Profitability Reporting You need them all… Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2015 Iridium Technology LLC Best Practices: Client, Matter, Parent Client, Firm, Office, Department, Team (plus Office Group…) Client/Matter attributes Titles / Personnel Types / Ranks Working Attorney Responsible Attorney: MBA, CA, etc. Participating Attorney: ORIG, RESP, etc.

Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2015 Iridium Technology LLC What about your Profitability Requirements? Unique

Customization / Exceptions Is your firm exactly like other firms? You have differences in…  Practice types  Locale / nomenclature  Firm culture  Allocation requirements  (etc.) Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2015 Iridium Technology LLC Best Practices: No limits on customizations or exceptions. Period. The system must be designed based on this premise

Selection Process You are going to have your profit solution for 5-10 years… Choose wisely! (and put some effort into it!) Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2015 Iridium Technology LLC Best Practices: Download the ILTA white paper: “Your Business Intelligence Bill of Rights” October 2014

The #1 Secret… … to a successful profitability implementation is… Keep it simple! Perfection is not the goal; the goal is fair/accurate/defensible profitability analysis Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2015 Iridium Technology LLC Best Practices: Seek to minimize: allocation methods, rules, profit accounts, payroll granularity, etc. Try to avoid: Exceptions Do not implement separate rules for small expenses

Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2015 Iridium Technology LLC SECTION #3 Best Practices for… Use Cases.

Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2015 Iridium Technology LLC “USE CASE” Profitability Reports Profitability Reports Executive / Management Dashboards Revenue Profit Report Design Profit Report Design Financial Analyst / Power User Dashboard Design Dashboard Design Partner / Timekeeper Dashboards GL Expense ProfitBudget SCENARIOS

About the Demo System Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2013 Iridium Technology LLC Laptop from Amazon $1626 Timekeepers – Masked Data Set 350

Use Case #1: Dashboards/Reports Ad-hoc or Excel based analysis only? Firm-defined reports? Vendor defined reports / dashboards How often will you distribute? Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2015 Iridium Technology LLC Best Practices: Dashboards/reports on at least a monthly basis “Self-serve” strongly recommended Demo: PROF-EXEC Dashboard

Use Case #2: Ad-hoc Capabilities Do you need ad-hoc capabilities? Will the vendor reports answer all of your questions? Do you want to get a developer involved each time you have a new query? Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2015 Iridium Technology LLC Best Practices: Your solution must have ad-hoc capabilities Firm to determine ad-hoc access policies Microsoft Excel is the preferred query tool Demo: Ad-hoc Analysis

Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2015 Iridium Technology LLC (Black Belt Ad-hoc Will you become a BBAHQW ? Query Wizard) QOTD Program

Is a Cube Required for Profitability? Since Profitability is creating “new data”… … there must be a secondary data repository Should it be a cube? Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2015 Iridium Technology LLC Best Practices: Cube data storage optimized for querying and reporting Enables fast queries and dashboards No coding required for ad-hoc queries Cubes provide foundation for firm-wide reporting

System Performance What is possible? What is acceptable? What is unacceptable? Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2015 Iridium Technology LLC Best Practices: Queries: 1-5 seconds Dashboards: 5 second average refresh Cube Processing: 1 hour or less

Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2015 Iridium Technology LLC SECTION #4 The Revenue Side of the Profitability Equation

Revenue - Overview Profit = Revenue – Expense Expenses/allocations covered in detail in Part 2 Revenue Types  Fee Revenue  Other revenue  Non-timekeeper revenue Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2015 Iridium Technology LLC

Business Intelligence for Law Firms. Period. © 2015 Iridium Technology LLC Thank You! Contact Info: LinkedIn Action Items: Profitability Best Practices white paper ILTA “BI Bill of Rights” white paper Free Profitability Consultations