Tea Hoffmann Chief Strategy Officer Parker Poe

Steve Fletcher Chief Information Officer

Parker Poe

Growing firm takes a big leap in efficiency with technology that provides deep client insights with no data entry.

PARKER POE GETS REAL ABOUT BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT.

PARKER POE ADAMS & BERNSTEIN LLP

Parker Poe has five offices in major markets across North Carolina and South Carolina and provides legal counsel to commercial and public organizations.

BUSINESS CHALLENGES

The firm needed an automated customer relationship management (CRM) solution to accurately identify existing and potential relationships.

WHY BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT PREMIER?

Business Development Premier is a powerful new integrated platform designed to transform CRM and business development for law firms.

BENEFITS

•RadicalCRMautomationupdatesclientinformation with no manual data entry

•Pushesdeeperinsightstolawyersmobiledevices

•Seamlesslyintegrateswithothercoretechnologies

•Improvesefficiency,profitability,andclientservice

“ We knew that by selecting Business Development Premier, our information would be far more accurate, far more up to date, and far more accessible for our lawyers to use on a daily basis.”

Tea Hoffmann Chief Strategy Officer

THERIGHTTECHNOLOGYFORENHANCEDCUSTOMERRELATIONSHIPMANAGEMENT

Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP has more than 200 lawyers in

five offices located in major markets across North Carolina and South

Carolina. Founded in 1884, the firm currently provides services in the

financial, healthcare, economic development, government, energy, and

manufacturing sectors.

As Parker Poe continues to grow, business development remains a top

priority, and the firm relies on technology to best leverage its customer

relationship management (CRM) intelligence. According to Chief Strategy

Officer Tea Hoffmann, “Strategically targeting our CRM efforts can add to

our bottom line by saving money and establishing new business quickly.”

For many years, Parker Poe relied on a CRM solution that many lawyers

found to be cumbersome and much too time-consuming. Not only did they

have to enter all data manually, but the solution often required them to exit

one system and go into another. Information within the firm’s Thomson

Reuters Elite™ financial solutions wasn’t linked to the CRM data, so when a

contact’s information changed, it would have to be updated twice.

“It made no sense for us to continue to rely on a system that hindered our

efficiency, especially given the advanced technology that is available today,”

states Chief Information Officer Steve Fletcher.

Hoffmann adds, “It is important that our lawyers are thinking about

business development in every aspect of the business. Therefore, we

determined that they need a reliable means of accessing insightful contact

information and identifying available opportunities.”

The firm’s decision makers conducted a thorough evaluation of replacement

CRM solutions and quickly found that Business Development Premier,

a new offering from Thomson Reuters Elite, had capabilities that would

benefit the firm in more meaningful ways than ever before. “Because

Business Development Premier provides seamless integration with our

firm’s Elite financial management system, as well as with other Thomson

Reuters solutions, such as Monitor Suite, we knew it would provide a huge

advantage by extending the value we receive out of systems we already use

today,” says Fletcher.

Additionally, Business Development Premier’s mobile functionality

enables lawyers to quickly find the information they need, regardless

of where they are. “We knew that by selecting Business Development

Premier, our information would be far more accurate, far more up to

date, and far more accessible for our lawyers to use on a daily basis,”

Hoffmann adds.

Business Development Premier, built on the Microsoft Dynamics®

platform, is a CRM solution enhanced with enterprise relationship

management (ERM) technology, marketing automation, experience

management tools, and corporate profiles on millions of companies

worldwide.

INSIGHTFULCRMADVANTAGESEffortlessly Maintaining Accuracy

Business Development Premier will be used to store all of the firm’s contact

and relationship data, as well as identify potential opportunities to form

relationships across industry groups. “Whenever we have a question about

a certain person or company, we can use Business Development Premier

to find out if we already have an existing relationship and to whom that

relationship belongs within our firm,” explains Fletcher.

The firm had more than 100,000 contacts stored in its previous CRM

solution, and it was “basically an electronic Rolodex with no process in

place to keep itself up to date,” describes Fletcher. In fact, the only time

the firm could identify and edit out-of-date contact information was after

getting bounce-back notifications from mailings. “Not only was this an

inefficient attempt at maintaining accuracy, it was impossible to keep

current,” Fletcher states.

With Business Development Premier, Fletcher and Hoffmann look forward

to having a relational database that is consistently kept accurate. “When

a contact’s title changes, Business Development Premier recognizes it

and updates our database without requiring any involvement on our end,”

Fletcher explains. “This was a major factor in our decision to participate in

the Business Development Premier beta program.”

Better Visibility into Existing Relationships

Beyond simply maintaining contact information, Fletcher and Hoffmann

look forward to using Business Development Premier to closely analyze the

strength of existing relationships. Business Development Premier scores

relationships by taking into account various factors, such as the frequency

of email traffic with a specific contact throughout a set period of time. For

example, contacts that have been out of touch for a year are going to be

appropriately weighted against those who’ve corresponded regularly in the

last three months.

“Business Development Premier benefits us with different sets of data that

enable us to draw inferences we never had the insight to before,” Fletcher

explains. “Best of all, we don’t have to perform any data entry for it to be

available to us.”

“ If we didn’t have Business Development Premier, we would continue to be inefficient. We wouldn’t have the data necessary to perform the types of targeted business development efforts we find valuable.”

Tea Hoffmann

High-Level Benefits

Hoffmann anticipates that Business Development Premier will produce

a substantial increase in the firm’s efficiency, therefore improving both

profitability and client service. “Lawyers will no longer be losing valuable

time entering data or searching for the information they need in order to be

effective,” she explains. “By intelligently tying together all of the information

that we have regarding our clients, we are able to create more touch points

and ultimately enhance the way we’re able to provide service.”

Fletcher says that Business Development Premier is consistent with a

core component of the firm’s strategic plan — to maximize client value.

He elaborates, “I cannot overstate the importance of enabling all of our

lawyers to quickly identify our firm’s relationships with any contact, straight

from their mobile devices. Business Development Premier will also enable

lawyers to respond to client requests about additional work within the firm,

quickly matching our expertise with the client’s needs.”

© 2014 Thomson Reuters L-391148/5-14

For more information about Business Development Premier, call 1-800-977-6529 or visit elite.com/getreal.

“ Business Development Premier will also enable lawyers to respond to client requests about additional work within the firm, quickly matching our expertise with the client’s needs.”

Steve Fletcher Chief Information Officer

STRATEGIZINGFORBETASUCCESS

According to Fletcher, the beta program has progressed very well. The

implementation team has been very responsive to the firm’s feedback and

helpful in answering questions. Weekly meetings are held with the Business

Development Premier team to discuss various product features, as well as

the long-term strategy for integrating Business Development Premier with

other Thomson Reuters solutions.

“The Business Development Premier team has been great about updating

us on its intended plans, and listening to our suggestions to benefit firms

such as ours that run on a wide platform of Thomson Reuters solutions,”

says Fletcher. “This goes a long way in helping us achieve our goal of

fostering a business development and client service environment for

all lawyers.”

Hoffmann elaborates, “We want to help create the best product possible

based on our real-world experience of what our lawyers need to be as

successful as possible. If they’re using a system that’s inefficient, takes away

from their billable time, or is too difficult to navigate, they’re not going to be

on board.”

Fletcher concludes, “We’re anticipating high attorney adoption with

Business Development Premier — and why not? We’ll be incorporating

and maintaining within Business Development Premier all of our

existing relationships, coupled with Thomson Reuters’ global database

of companies, which is automatically updated. When you hand that

to lawyers on a tablet or other mobile device, it can be a major game-

changer in the industry.”