Events

Event Overview:

How do you make the decision? General Counsel and Legal Operations Managers need a clear investment strategy on the best allocation of resources (internal or budget) to solve problems long-term.

Join Thomson Reuters on 23 September for a practical discussion on how to determine whether you should invest in building or buying a technology solution for your legal department. Business specialists will discuss what ‘building’ a solution with internal resources really looks like, the pros and cons of ‘buying’, and how to make an informed business decision on the right investment strategy.

Learning Points:

• Business case for investment: Research from a 2020 Baker Gilmour (and Chief Executive Magazine) *survey found that only 61% of public company CEOs and 40 percent of private company CEOs view their GC as strategic business partners. Investment to optimize the legal departments operations should be a key focus for GCs in order to reflect the value of the legal department to the wider business.

• Scoping solutions: From 2015 there’s been a **boom in legal technology providers in Australia alone, which indicates there are plenty of options, but this has also made it more difficult to identify the right solution fit. Functionality and key business-critical considerations should create a blueprint for assessing technology.

• Investment strategy: In making the investment decision to buy it’s critical to have a 5-year outlook for the solution. Scalability, flexibility, security, integrations, and innovation should all be key factors in assessing vendors or internal solutions and their suitability to your legal department’s needs.

• Weighing up risks: It is easy for IT projects to blow their budget. While the financial risk to ‘buying’ may be reduced, the operational and internal reputational damage caused by poorly implemented, or not fit-for-purpose solutions can be great.

• Hidden costs: Whether building or buying there are inherent hidden costs to consider as part of the investment decision that has a material impact on the viability of the investment strategy.

Speaker Profiles: