Question 1.  What are the options available with a company for sourcing the services?

Answer.  A company may have the following options available:

Question2.  What is the difference between BPO and KPO?

Answer. The terms can be explained as follow:

BPO

Transaction Intensive Service

Clients expertise and service provider merely provides delivery. Example:

•          Customer Contact Services

•          Transaction Services

•          HR Data Processing

•          Medical Transcription

KPO

    Knowledge Intensive Service

Clients expect company to be the domain expert. Example:

•          Insurance Underwriting, Risk assessment, and Equity Research

•          Intellectual Property Research

•          Financial Analysis

•          Legal-Business and Market Research

Question3.  What is
India’s positioning vis a vis contemporary countries in the world pertinent to the BPO outsourcing?

  Answer.              
India’s positioning in BPO outsourcing is as specified below:           

PHILLIPINES : (Capitalizing on a strong telecom service base)

       
JAMAICA        : (Answering the call or low cost call centres)

CHINA            : (Asian language skills and large labour pool)

         MEXICO         : (Technical labour base for
Latin America)

         INDIA              : (Best mix of breadth and depth of labour with strong English Language skills and 24X7 support)

Question4.           What exactly KPO is all about?

Answer.                According to Harvard Business Review:

KPO is another flavor of BPO where the work involved calls for some measure of expertise on the part of the company.  It provides value to the client through domain expertise than process expertise.”

Question5.           What are the broad areas covered in the KPO industry?

Answer.                The following table elaborates the areas covered in KPO industry:

Question6.        Where the business of legal process outsourcing emanate from?

   Answer.             The legal process emanates from the following entities:

·         Several MNCs (in-house legal departments)

·         Legal research firms

·         International law firms

·         Legal publishing companies

·         Solo attorneys

·         Attorneys at law

Question7.             What are key compelling reasons for outsourcing by the law firms based in UK & US?

Answer.                 The following are the compelling reasons for outsourcing:

·         To adapt themselves to meet changing opportunities

·         To focus on broader business issues

·         Cost effectiveness

·         Increased external focus of the employees

·         Access to world-class talent

·         24/7 working

Question8.           What about the Market Size and Growth prospects?

Answer.                The following table illustrates the market size:

Global spending on legal services is estimated to be at least over US$ 250 billion, with the US accounting for more than two-thirds of the market. 

Market Size for Legal Services in 2003

Question9.           What is the break-up of total spending by the top US based law firms?

Answer.                The following table shows the annual spending break up:

According to Forrester Inc., though there is little hard data available to quantify the legal offshoring segment of the Indian BPO industry, it is estimated that only about 2-3% (US$ 60-80 million) of the potential market has been tapped so far. Reports indicate that billing by Indian lawyers to
US firms for in-house work alone ranged from US$5 million to US$15 million in 2004. The total employee base engaged in providing legal BPO services from India (captive+pure-play third party) is estimated to be at least 600-700 employees.

SOURCE: Evalueserve

Question10.                        What are the major legal areas which U.S. law firm covers?

Answer.                   This chart shows the major areas:

                                 • Banking laws

                                 • Bankruptcy:   business        

                                 • Bankruptcy:  consumer

                                 • General Corporate laws

                                 • Commercial laws

                                 • Civil rights and liberties

                                 • Criminal defense

                                 • IPR laws

                                 • International Business laws

                                 • Securities/financing laws

                                 • Tax laws

Question11.           What about the General Legal Market Trends specific to operations of law firms in US?

Answer.                 Despite the encouraging prediction regarding outsourcing, legal practices are subject to a number of external forces affecting all law firms, including the following:

·   Changing Economics.

  There are restraints on revenues driven by client fee resistance.

·   Overheads are escalating, driven by support staff employment costs, IT expenditures, marketing costs, professional liability and health insurance premiums.

·   Marketplace Maturation. There are shifts from the sellers’ market of the past to a buyers’ market in which clients increasingly determine pricing, staffing and strategy.

·   Firms are earning Brand name recognition. The benefit of brand recognition is a 10% to 20% premium in fees and billing rates.

·   Marketing Expenditures are increasing, now approaching and even exceeding two percent of revenues in some firms.

·   Geographic Expansion. In order to access new markets and clients, law firms increasingly are expanding geographically. This is true for diversified, full-service firms. Local firms are becoming regional, regional becoming national, national becoming international, international going global.

·   Offshore Outsourcing. Offshore outsourcing of patent prosecution is increasing. Patent applications and litigation support are the two areas of focus for offshore legal outsourcing to India, New Zealand,
South Africa and other English-speaking, low-labor cost locations around the world.

Question12. What is the business expected to come in India pertaining to legal outsourcing?

Answer.       The Current addressable potential (demand) in US:

 By 2015     it is expected to be $3 bn

 And Indian share to be – 60%

 Market tapped so far by existing LPO service providers till date – 3%

Question13.        Why India is in the lead in the legal outsourcing industry?

Answer.              The following advantages make India leader in the legal process outsourcing industry:

Demonstrated advantages:     

• Vast resource of talented English speaking lawyers

 • Pay rate between 10 to 15% of that of US lawyers

 • Helping US law firms operate 24×7

 • Friendly Govt. policies for IT and ITES exports

Country specific advantages:

 • India, like the US, is a common-law jurisdiction rooted in the British legal tradition

 • Appellate and Supreme Court proceedings in
India takes place exclusively in English

 • Indian legal opinions are written exclusively in English

Question14.         What type of government support is available for the LPO players in India?

Answer.                Government has provided various tax sops which are as follows:

   100%Income tax exemption for export of services:

According to CBDT, the exemption would embrace the following (few) services:

·                  Back-office Operations

·                  Content Development or Animation

·                  Engineering & Design services

·                  Human Resource Services

·                  Insurance Claim Processing

·                  Legal Databases

Other support

·      Duty-free imports of capital goods (under the Export Promotion of Capital Goods scheme)

·      Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) for 100 percent of the equity in BPO companies

·      Promotions of STPs which provide ready-to-.plug IT and telecom infrastructure

·      National Venture Fund for the Software and IT Industry with a corpus of Rs. 100 crore

Question15.         Which are the key players leading the India Legal BPO industry?

Answer.                The major players are:

Question16.         What are the primary services in the LPO business?

Answer.                The following table illustrates the primary services in LPO business:

Question17.        What are the industries / spheres of businesses which can be covered in the LPO business?

Answer.              The industries which can be covered are:

·         Appeals ·         Arbitration & Mediation ·         Banking and Lending ·         Corporate and Securities ·         Broker/Dealer (Finance) ·         Commercial Litigation

·         Mergers and Acquisitions ·         Real Estate ·         Taxation ·         Insurance ·         Intellectual Property ·         Business Advisory Services

Question18.         What is the supply source of legal outsourcing services from India?

Answer.                The followings are  the supply source of legal outsourcing services from
India:

·         Pilot offices of publishers

·         Offshore centric service providers

·         Units of large multinational law firms

·         In-house legal departments

Question19.         What are the billing charges?

Answer.                The billing charges are as follows:

Question20.     What types of services are covered in the legal research and information area?

Answer.           The services covered are:

·   Draft research memoranda, law surveys and comparisons of the laws of various jurisdictions with respect to
U.S. federal and state case laws, statutory laws and regulations

·   Collection, organizing, reviewing data and preparation of the due diligence reports pursuant to a due diligence investigation, including M&A due diligence and due diligence related to SEC filings and financings

·   Review documents for transactions and litigation and preparing appropriate reports

·   Preparation of legal opinions for all practice areas

·   Preparation of briefs and facts at all levels of courts

Question21.      What about patent oriented services?

Answer.             Following are the patent oriented services:

·         Patent Portfolio Analysis

·         End-To-End Patent Application Drafting and Filing

·         Patent Mining and Administration

·         Competitor Analysis

·         Patentability Assessment

·         Licensing Support

·         IP Monitoring

·         Patent Claims Mapping

·         Patent and Technology Landscaping

Question22.      What is the LPO business process in brief?

Answer.             The step represents the LPO working process in brief:

1. Scanning & uploading the document onto a secure intranet site

·         Access the assigned documents

·         Identify responsive and privileged documents

·         Performing the assignment

1. When complete, upload the findings back onto the intranet

Question23.         What is the data extraction service in the LPO business?

Answer.                The data extraction service is:

1.      Searching the web portals and abstracting the data

2.      Quality control measurements for better output

3.      CONFIRMATION

4.      Providing him with the best data in the required format

5.      Whether it meets your requirements

Question24.         What are the necessary requirements to target a U.K. based clients?

Answer.                The vendors based in India must imperatively get well-versed with the lexis-nexis     software workings (to target a UK based client) encompassing the following vital aspects:

Source: LexisNexis

Question25.        What are the few online resources available for research purposes?

Answer.             The available online resources are:

Question26.         What are the Astra, Shastra and Lakshya in the LPO business?

Answer.                The step depicts the terms as elaborated below:

ASTRA

• Human Resource

• Financial Soundness

• Innovative & reliable service base

• Potent marketing strategies

SHASTRA

• IT based infrastructure

• Brand development resources

• Business Networking

• Strategic Alliances

LAKSHYA

·         The Legal firms

·         The Attorneys

·         The Corporate legal department

Question27.      What about quality related accreditations?

Answer.             The accreditations are:

·      International Standards Organization (ISO) 9000 series

·      Six Sigma

·      CMMi Model (Capability Maturity Model)

·      SEI-CMM Model

·      People Capability Maturity Model (People-CMM)

·      e Services Capability Model (eSCM)

Question28.      What are the Information Security aspects?

Answer.             Security: It’s the process of avoiding misuse of information and protecting data from disclosing to an unauthorized person.

In this context the data security properties can be categorized as follow:

·      Privacy

·      Confidentiality

·      Integrity

·      Authentication

·      Authorization

·      Accountability

·      Confidence

·      Digital right management

·      Link-ability

Question29.         What type of business models are prevailing in the LPO industry?

Answer.                The business models are:

·         Sub Contracting Partner

·         Exclusive development facility

·         Co-market

·         Project Based

·         Business Relationship

Question30.         What are the prime challenges in doing legal process outsourcing business?      

Answer.                The prime challenges are:

·         Confidentiality issues

·         Abdication of responsibility

·         Risk management

·         Quality assurances

Question31.         How well are we equipped to do the LPO business sitting in India?

Answer.                We are well equipped to do LPO business due to the following facts:

·      Dexterous in legal activities (domestic / foreign)

·       Versed with the English language skills

·       Good at formulating legal opinions

·       Research oriented mind-set

·       Arrangement of the best possible talent

·       Managing 24×7 working for US clients

·       Giving services at only one-third costs

References:

www.acclivant.com

www.nasscom.in

www.ciionline.org

www.stpi.in

Someone rightly cited, “law is both a business and a profession”. Meaning thereby, to run the business in the legal industry, one need not necessarily be a lawyer. As I believe, this knowledge base is meant to be dispersed amongst numerous professionals across the country; it would be a matter of joy to communicate that the professionals other than lawyers can also play the game of legal process outsourcing from India. 

Contemplate the case: 

You are a law firm providing legal services that has got its clients based in USA. Some day, late evening you are assigned an agreement to be immediately analyzed, interpreted and suggested upon. This needs to be responded to the client first thing the next morning. You look around and see if anyone is available to your backing at office. You realize, the team of Research Analysts has gone for the day. You are left with one over burdened secretary of yours who is a lady, has got her limitations of not to stay for late hours in office. You feel happy to learn about the presence of newly joined legal trainee, but of no use as he seems to be inexperienced in analyzing the documents. 

So what can you do? 

You can dare to sit for longer hours without expecting much help from your subordinates. You can think to work upon alone. You first would take the print-outs of the agreement, arrange papers, take a pen in hand to mark, analyze carefully, note down key aspects, search over lexis-nexis softwares, if required, ring your lawyer friend to enquire more. During the process, you would get your food managed from outside without your wish. Back at home, your family is ready and keenly waiting for you to take them for dining at a trendy restaurant and then probably a movie. You sometimes watch the clock and think to inform at home but get scared of being scolded (with love). So you dare not!  

If you observe the situation, you find the cost of working would be quite high including direct and indirect cost (The pressure and losing of opportunity benefits are excluded from the computation).  

Or do you outsource?If you are a professional entrepreneur and make your cost-benefit analysis, you would certainly create your dependable sources outside office to get your work done. You may rely upon that in case of deed and need both. This external support is actually a team of professionals including lawyers in India who are equally qualified. India is the new power, in the global arena, an emerging country where economy and demographics both are in favor of growth. Operating from India, they certainly are in the position of providing the outsourcing oriented services all the time. They would work through out the day while you are sleeping at home (night at USA) and next morning before you open your inbox, you find the project working emailed. This not only saves lots of time but doubles the earning schedule for you. The legal system allows them to supplement the strength the other organization/firm has. It’s not about replacing the intellectual work force working for the law firms abroad; rather the purpose is to amplify the capacity to produce more, suiting the quality standards. Confidentiality and privacy of information of course is a major concern.Precisely speaking, there would be five intelligent reasons, you must outsource.s         Faster working. s         Quality service offerings. s         Working round-the-clock. s         Substantial cost savings. s         Higher returns. Acclivant’s Industry Research Corroborates:Why do the firms based in UK and US actually outsource legal processes?  

Our market research reveals that lawyers think of the off-shore legal process largely as a cost-saving measure and then desire that the quality of the vendor is tremendous.  

The majority of the law firms / organizations that we interact with about outsourcing are predominantly looking at cost savings, though when we chat about the issue in more detail with them we habitually uncover the fact that they are trying to solve a problem within their legal process.  These problems are more often than not related to the quality of services or productivity of team. 

It has been our understanding that firms outsource legal processes for the following grounds:  

• To avail huge cost benefits – Most of the firms who seek to leverage labor arbitrage look to achieve total legal process savings between 50% and 70%.  This is much higher than traditional outsourcing arrangements where the cost savings often are in the range of 15% to 25%.
• *36X7 working for their clients.
• This improvement comes in three forms:

Ø      Improved quality central to the service itself. Ø      Enhanced commercial impact. Ø      Superior strategic impact.

• To concentrate on their core competency (legal consulting).

*That’s an only one of its kind concept followed by Acclivant. In the legal outsourcing industry, we as vendors have to work 24×7 for our clients located abroad. We deem them not only our clients but business partners. Keeping this inimitable relationship in consideration, we work together. They operate from morning to evening for around 12 hours a day. Thus our combined business working would be 36×7 working giving more output for our clients. 

Outlining the LPO industry  

This industry is sure to get bigger at a faster pace. United States is the country which alone spends around US$ 150 Billion every year towards legal services which keeps on rising by 5% year on year basis. According to our industry research, this demand emanates not only from small and big law firms but from solo practitioners, attorneys, legal research companies, legal departments of various MNCs who have realized the need of outsourcing. After United States, there are other countries like UK, France and Australia which are gearing up for legal outsourcing to India. Very conservatively speaking, over 50% of legal outsourcing happening world-wide would come to India.  

Gain to the economy of outsourcing country 

The economy as a whole of the country outsourcing legal services, say United States, gain in various aspects. It’s not only about the direct costs saving to the companies outsourcing located there but the savings in opportunity costs are huge. They earn more because they get focused towards their main businesses. Further, the LPO vendors based in India are bound to incur expenses to entice more and more clients in their target markets. It could be “To / Through Sales Strategy” and even for that matter, they hire professionals in United States. That leads to supplementary employment opportunities for the US population. If the companies and professionals grow in the country, automatically the economy gets rewarded. Then there are other sources of revenues for the government like taxes, statutory fees, registration fees, etc. if the vendor companies / firms establish their offices in United States. 

Scope of outsourcing 

A law firm running its business usually spends lots of dollars over various business related activities which are outsourcable. 

Total spending by Top 200 Law Firms in United States 

Source: Hildebrandt International, US 

It is therefore evident that almost 50% of the entire spending by law firms over different business dealings can be outsourced. Alongside, there are certain high-end services which are outsourced like IPR Portfolio Management, Patent Search and Application Drafting, TM and Copyright Registration and Protection, etc. 

Another link in the global mind chain 

On a broader scale, Financial Data and its Analytics, Equity Research, etc. are also outsourcable projects. 

              Source: Economic Times Article 

Imperative strategic working 

The entrepreneurs must frame out the sales and marketing strategies to flow in the water efficiently. 

Sales & Marketing Strategies 

1. Investment

·         When & How much·         Rationale·         Key benefits

1. Return

·         Client Acquisition – When & How·         Sales Forecasting for one year·         Sales Budget for three years 

Alliances in the game 

To widen the footprints in different markets for grabbing hold the larger pie of the cake, the vendors would have to sign the pacts for the business alliances. 

Marketing  Alliances 

·         Acquisition Alliances·         Services  Alliances·         Promotional Alliances·         Pricing  Collaborations 

Challenges 

It would be a wise decision to understand about the business challenges in the LPO industry. Few of them can be elucidated as follow: 

• Confidentiality issues
• Abdication of responsibility
• Risk management
• Quality assurances

If the vendors get successful in facing the challenges and overcoming them, they are the winners in the industry. 

References:www.acclivant.comwww.google.comwww.marketresearch.comwww.nasscom.org 

Contact details: