The Eledecks platform is designed to provide law firms with a robust online space where they can confidently drive sustainable revenues by leveraging their resources and assets. If you think Airbnb and Amazon have cornered the market in innovative business models and scalable marketplaces, you can relax. Law firms can flex their muscles on Eledecks' whitelabel platform and secure competitive advantage notwithstanding the pace of digital transformation and economic disruption all around them.
Why law firms need platforms
If a firm competes for #retainer clients it soon finds out that clients are not only seeking teams of experts whose advice they trust and people they like, but they are also looking for competitive advantage delivered by underpinning technology. The problem for the majority of law firms is that it is impossible to do both #services and #technology really well and they have often been paralysed by fear of choosing the wrong solution however, doing nothing is no longer a viable strategy if your firm intends to hold its position and/or grow.
As explained by Sangeet Paul Choudary* in his work on the rise of platforms, traditional industries such as professional services may have relied on linear models which are fast becoming outmoded, but they can flourish when they move to the platform model. The trick is finding the right platform.
Eledecks has capitalised on platform and network technology development to enable compliance focused business relationships to flourish and markets to emerge within its ecosystem. Our customers are all those stakeholders who use the platform.
How relationships flourish on the platform
Law firms licence a portal within the Eledecks ecosystem and share this resource with their business clients who use it to manage their HR compliance. The portal not only helps the business client manage daily HR routines, but it also provides a channel for collaboration between the law firm and the client's business managers. Data is constantly being added and transactions are completed. Soon, this portal becomes a valuable CRM database stacked with living data to which the stakeholders share access.
Legal teams
Once a business client is established on the portal, legal teams only have to add the clients’ drafted documents to stimulate the compliance collaboration lifecycle. When the client begins using the portal they start uploading data and unlocking the value. Soon, service providers begin to benefit from deeper client relationships because they are welcomed as business partners and invited to do more of the value-added work which they enjoy doing. Eledecks portal ticks along in the background, helping to close the compliance loops and the Eledecks team can work closely with the stakeholders to ensure the community of clients keeps growing and key performance indicators are satisfied.
Business clients
Take a look at the dedicated website which explains the client proposition. Eledecks offers law firms their own version of this website which they can use to promote their portal to clients. It is designed in line with the law firms brand and intended to provide a soft landing for new and retainer clients as well as a familiar place where they can login to their portal account.
Marketing
Marketing and business development teams can deploy engagement, retention and referral campaigns direct to the client’s business via their portal which means legal practitioners are no longer gatekeepers to up-selling and cross-selling activities.
IT
Use of the portal is subject to a non-exclusive licence. The platform and servers are managed on an outsourced basis by Eledecks and each specific portal is 100% supported by an Eledecks team which takes the pressure off in house IT teams. It’s also possible to integrate portal admin dashboards with the firm’s PMS to streamline access.
Finance
The client lifecycle is automated by the portal system including accounts which eliminates additional work for finance teams. The external payment processor directs revenue shares to the law firm and raises self-billing VAT invoices. Finance teams have transparency and via dedicated dashboards for portal account records and reporting.
*Sangeet Paul Choudary is a business scholar, entrepreneur, advisor and business author. He is best known for his work on platform economics and network effects. For his contributions to the field of platform economics, #Choudary was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2017.