Camerons & Law Firm Outsourcing
Camerons are in the press for outsourcing their support services to Integreon. The exact scope has yet to be finalised - or at least made public.
Various people on the Lawyers's blog have voiced their concerns, but for most partners there is some double-mindedness that needs to be worked through. All law firms claim to put their clients centre stage. All firms are grappling with how to manage costs without affecting the client experience. All firms see support functions as an overhead. Oh yes they do. Look at your balance sheet. So all firms are looking at ways of minimizing support costs.
If Camerons believe that the services that will be run form a third party supplier are sufficiently generic to not compromise their strategic advantage, they will make savings by outsourcing. Recent common examples are cloud computing and servers, secretarial services from abroad or group catering facilities.
If they think that they can outsource Marketing & HR, does it not say something about the way that these people are seen by their partner colleagues? It seems to say that partners believe that their added value is less than the cost. And who's to say that they're wrong? But perhaps they are throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Perhaps different people with a different structure could provide better value and at less cost than outsourcing?