Professional Services Accounting ARTICLE -
GAME ON - Tracking Trends Affecting Your Clients Helps Keep Them, And You, On Top

Target Audience: Consulting Services, Law Firm Professionals, Lawyers, Law Firm Associates

As the legal industry becomes increasingly competitive, it’s not enough to stay on top of your game. You must help your clients do the same by researching and tracking issues and trends that affect their businesses. Ensuring your clients dodge potential threats and maximize opportunities within their industries will help you score big points with them and set you apart from the competition.

Finding what matters most

As you know, legislative, regulatory and legal changes can quickly and significantly affect your clients. So staying on top of their needs and learning about the issues and priorities they’re most concerned about is vital. For example, would your client’s dispute be strengthened by in-depth research on certain participants or organizations? Does your corporate client really know enough about his or her prospective business partner?

A number of online resources can help you answer these kinds of questions for your clients. Web-based services such as LexisNexis and Westlaw continue to be top industry-tracking resources, but there are other important resources. They include subscription databases for press releases and software services, such as WatchThatPage.com, which enables you to automatically collect new information from your favorite sites on the Internet. Also, OneSource.com provides analyst reports, industry profiles, corporate family trees, significant developments and non-U.S. news articles.

In addition, why not help your clients find out all they can about their competitors? Competitive intelligence — the process of legally and ethically gathering information on competitors to anticipate trends, compare practices and identify opportunities — can yield valuable information for your clients about their competitors’:

• Product offerings and services
• Financial performance
• Market position
• Growth or expansion plans, including closures or relocations
• Mergers, acquisitions and strategic alliances
• Changes in focus or business direction

You can start by checking out the Competitive Intelligence Resource Index at Ciseek.com. It has a search engine and an extensive list of competitive intelligence resources.

First, review your clients’ competitors’ Web sites and relevant newsgroups and associations. Next, regularly scan major daily newspapers, community papers, industry and business publications, and other general publications for other key information and to identify trends.

Also, look at Hoover’s (hoovers.com), which provides industry, market and company-specific intelligence for both public and private businesses, as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission (sec.gov) and FreeEDGAR (freeedgar.com). And check credit-reporting agencies, such as Dun & Bradstreet. They can provide you with financial data, management and ownership information and payment histories.

Finally, chat regularly with clients, prospects, bankers and other referral sources. They will alert you early to shifting needs and market opportunities.

Competitive intelligence doesn’t end with the collection of information. The data must be compiled and analyzed to best understand everything. To help ensure you get the information you need and effectively use it, list how you plan to use the information to help your clients. Additionally, be sure you have an effective system for documenting and maintaining competitive intelligence data so that it’s easily accessible for future reference.

Weighing the costs

Using competitive intelligence is a long-term proposition, so you must be willing to commit the time and staff (associates and professional librarians or outside consultants) to continuously gather useful information.

Besides staff salaries, there’s no set cost. But be aware that some resources can be expensive. The cost varies depending on whether you get pay-as-you-go subscriptions, flat-fee agreements, or vetted and reliable nonchargeable sources. When considering service subscriptions, be sure to have a clear idea of the kind of information you need and which services will get the job done. Keep in mind that there’s not one source that can be relied on solely, so a combination of databases and industry- or practice-area-specific journals should be used.

Firm benefits

Staying on top of clients’ needs — including understanding the issues they face in their industries and specific businesses — provides a number of benefits to your firm. It sets you apart from other law firms while enabling your firm to develop emerging practice areas and maintain a healthy firm. What other reasons do you need?

Find out how our expertise in professional services accounting can add value to your business. Email us or call us at 1 (888) 875-9770.

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