Am Law 50 Firm Ensures Employee-Friendly Outsourcing Path while Improving Back Office Efficiency

Based in Seattle, this 1,000+ attorney Am Law 50 firm with 16 US offices in 12 states, had expiring outsourcing contracts in place with two vendors in 6 of their offices. Nine of the firm’s other offices were staffed in-house with long term dedicated employees. The firm was interested in determining the potential opportunity to improve the quality and consistency of services for the in-house offices while identifying the “best” partner to provide outsourced services. In addition, their leadership wanted to partner with a service provider that would not only meet the services required today, but the firm’s future needs as well.

OPPORTUNITY
Based in Seattle, this 1,000+ attorney Am Law 50 firm with 16 US offices in 12 states, had expiring outsourcing contracts in place with two vendors in 6 of their offices. Nine of the firm’s other offices were staffed in-house with long term dedicated employees. The firm was interested in determining the potential opportunity to improve the quality and consistency of services for the in-house offices while identifying the “best” partner to provide outsourced services. In addition, their leadership wanted to partner with a service provider that would not only meet the services required today, but the firm’s future needs as well.

PLAN
The firm engaged Mattern to provide a review of their current outsourcing agreements and complete on-site assessments of the outsourced services as well as select in-house offices. For the remaining in-house services, Mattern conducted remote interviews with their facilities management operations teams.

Based on Mattern’s findings and recommendations for increasing the efficiency of the overall operation, a customized Request for Proposal (RFP) was created that would incorporate best practices as well as requirements for competitive contract terms. In addition to the outsourced offices, the firm elected to also include all nine of the in-house offices, seeking to choose one service provider for all of their facilities management operations and developing a plan to keep their in-house employees financially whole.

Following a Request for Information process, the firm selected five service providers to participate in the RFP process: the incumbents, Novitex and Ricoh, and three new providers–Canon Business Process Services, Swiss Post and DTI.

RESULTS
Based on the RFP responses as well as interviews with the service providers and their designate National Operations Manager, the firm selected Ricoh to be the firm-wide sole provider of outsourcing services.

Mattern and the firm’s leadership negotiated a contract that resulted in:
- Increased workflow efficiencies, consolidation of services, and improved service levels resulting in a 14% reduction in staffing.
- A savings of 33% in the current outsourced services and 4% on the in-house services that were transitioned to the vendor-partner.
- A wage-bridging solution which kept all in-house employees financially whole while moderating the impact to the submitted pricing. 80% of the firm’s employees transitioned to the outsourced operation.
- Upgraded monthly reporting tools, including job submission, for all the firm’s offices.

The new agreement included:
- Substantially improved terms and conditions over their current outsourced agreements.
- Firm-wide, standardized, penalty-based service level agreements incorporating best practices for all offices.
- A vendor provided national account management program that includes standardized reporting and firm-wide invoicing.

Establishing and maintaining a successful contract negotiation is a situation in which there needs to be two winners, not a winner and a loser. While every firm wants to procure the best contracts through informed negotiation, it is also important to preserve the long term, industry relationships with the vendors. You’ve got to pick the competitors wisely, and you must know the best practices in your region. To that end, there’s a great deal of strategy involved in an Open RFP; one might say an art.

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