Developing a global brand: inside and out

More law firms are now categorising themselves as international with offices spanning both continents and jurisdictions. How effectively, however, are these firms managing their global brand? Stephen Blundell, a director at Gracechurch Consulting, explores the global arena, examining how major corporates have led the way and how law firms might improve on their current performance.

Globalisation has been the buzzword of the last decade – not just for the giant multinationals who were global before we knew the word existed – but also for the bedrock middle-market players. According to a survey by Coopers & Lybrand in 19971, around 60 per cent of middle-market companies exported more than 25 per cent of their output.

We now take this for granted. As I write, there are three boxes of breakfast cereal on the table. One from the mighty Kellogg’s Co, a second from that Swiss upstart Nestlé and intriguingly, the third from Jordans, a family business from Biggleswade. The significance is not that my family have bought all three on account of their brand familiarity, but because we have bought them in a supermarket in Greece. Jordans has chosen to play the global game with the big boys.

Of course, globalisation has meant much more than extensive distribution channels. Companies have consolidated manufacturing so that single products are made in one location only. And they have persuaded others in the supply chain to fit into this regime.

This kind of operation has only been possible by a very vigorous approach towards management: management of supply; management of production; management of distribution and management of the brand. What I buy in Greece, I expect the product to be the same as what I buy in Luton.

Law firms have seen the opportunity here. Global businesses demand global law firms don’t they? Convinced of the logic, many firms have invested huge sums in buying or establishing offices all over the world. But most firms have found that their global clients do not automatically beat a path to their door in these new locations.

Explanations I have heard include:

“The firm we merged with had a different (more middle-market) client base”;
“It takes time to establish sufficient critical mass”, and so on.

The truth is that these firms have not yet managed to match their client’s ability to create a brand. Too many firms still equate this with ensuring the logo appears

in the right place on their letterhead. But, like my breakfast cereal, brand is about client experience, reproducibility, confidence – and being able to charge a lot more for it.

Developing a brand and delivering all that goes with it demands management disciplines of the kind used by client organisations. In a professional services firm, that equates to political power. Look at your own firm:

Who enforces knowledge sharing?

Who enforces client service standards?

Who enforces cross-practice and cross-jurisdiction client sharing?

Enforce is not a comfortable word in most firms. But these activities, which are vital to the global brand, don’t come naturally to partnerships. Worse still, many international firms have been forged by coalition building. Political power and enforcement seem all but impossible where individual offices and individual partners feel that their identity is threatened. Perhaps if the trade-off were clearer to them, more progress could be made.

Too many firms are still trying to be ‘pretenders’ – pretending they can deliver political autonomy and a global brand. Instead they remain ‘federal’ because they have not generated the political momentum to enforce a global brand.

A few unlucky firms, probably those more focused on themselves than their clients, will end up losing autonomy and still not achieve a global brand. These ‘puppets’ remind us that having strong leadership matters, but it matters even more where they end up leading you.

For the other two, we can look at their gains and losses The gains for the global firms are clear: a brand promise, delivered from any office by any partner or client service team – for which the client pays a premium.

However, the losses are worth noting too. Of these, the most difficult to grapple with is the loss of the sense of belonging. Paradoxically, as firms are growing larger and trying to establish one global brand, so their people are gravitating ever more strongly to a local office or practice area for a sense of identity.

There are two serious consequences of this tendency. First, where the sense of belonging and identity reside, so too, sooner or later does the political power. Tribalism is sure to undermine the global brand. Second, a gap opens up between the multi-disciplinary, multi-country board whose sights are set on the big picture, and the narrow, protective units they are seeking to manage.

Too few firms have recognised the need to build an internal brand in a way that counters these destructive forces. Building the brand internally requires at least as much energy, investment and dedication as the external effort. It demands investment in:

Internal communications – not a quarterly staff newsletter, but a genuine two-way channel of communication between those who manage the brand and those who deliver it;
Team building – firms need to train their people in team building and leadership skills. Teams should include cross-border and cross-practice work on projects and on clients;
Supporting systems – systems which support the sharing of client information and knowledge must work throughout the organisation. We are currently researching firms’ use of InterAction for contact management2. Most firms have not implemented it internationally and those that have tolerate take-up levels averaging a mere 20 per cent.

A visit to many of the largest firms’ websites would lead you to suppose that they are already global firms. For those that truly deliver a global brand inside and out, the rewards will be substantial. Our observation is that there remain a large number of pretenders.

Stephen Blundell is a director of Gracechurch Consulting, a business consultancy providing research and consultancy services to professional services firms. He can be contacted at www.grch.net.

Reference:

The Middle Market Barometer, Coopers & Lybrand, 1997
What makes Contact Management Work in a Law Firm?, Gracechurch Consulting, 2002