In the world of competitive intelligence (CI), various theories on analysis and benchmarking have helped drive company decisions. Working well in the corporate world of Proctor & Gamble, General Electric and IBM; what can these types of analyses do for law firms??
How can firms apply benchmarking analysis when the definition of benchmarking is " the process of finding out who is best and trying to learn from their success?" Most firms believe they are the best and everyone in the profession can learn from them. But dig a little deeper into Trend, Predictive, Demographic, Social Network or the familiar SWOT analysis and there are interesting parallels and applications that can help law firms.
1. Trend or "change over time" analysis- firms need to monitor areas of business trends...local, state, regional or national to find out what economies are booming and which ones can potentially go bust. Firms with substantial healthcare law practices need to follow the ever changing landscape from the Affordable Healthcare Act to insurance exchanges and beyond....CI can help with the filtering and tracking the mountains of information. Who are the major players benefiting from private and public health exchanges, are they clients? Do we want them as clients? If so, how does the firm approach them as potential clients? If not, are there other secondary players who maybe potential clients.
2. Predictive or "future gazing" analysis- foretelling the future is not the main focus of this analysis. Granted, the theory behind predictive analysis is "looking at a situation and what may or may not happen to this situation within some future time period." But what law firms have not added laterals hires or more summer law clerks based on a new or existing client's business venture or expansion forecast?? This is predictive analysis.
3. Social Network Analysis (SNA)- describes relationships between individuals, groups or organizations. A familiar example is LinkedIn.com. Using this second largest social network in the world (Facebook is the largest) in CI research is popular topic for SCIP.org and many blogs. A January 24, 2012 posting on the SCIP website, "How to use LinkedIn for CI" suggested studying company personnel & hiring trends of competitors. Look for patterns, relationships.
4. Demographic Analysis- is the examination of specific segments on existing and/or potential customers. Firms can target small businesses in a particular area i.e. potential clients in the local business "incubator" community.
5. SWOT Analysis- as discussed in an earlier post is " a strategic methodology of a company or organization --Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats." Yes, they can be too broad and used too frequently, but for many organizations they are a start-a beginning in the competitive discussion.
