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What Matters Most in Proving the ROI in Legal Innovation - Summary Notes

By Christiane Matuch posted 03-26-2021 10:19

  
Please enjoy the summary notes from the 3/25 Twitter Discussion entitled "What Matters Most in Proving the ROI in Legal Innovation" authored by Christiane Matuch, Innovation Project Manager, Greenberg Traurig.

What matters most in proving the ROI in legal innovation?

  • Meet the needs (genuine use case, scoped and built out)
  • Identify the User (who are you setting out to serve, identify THEIR needs)
  • Adoption (mostly within the intended group)
  • Gather metrics about your innovative solution

Quantitative v. qualitative value? How do you measure that?

  • Increased revenue or client engagement
  • Risk reduction
  • Define what end stage success looks like and measure against that
  • Qualitative can be used to influence decision making. It humanizes the quantitative evidence presented.
  • Customer satisfaction leads to future work/revenue
  • Educational benefit of learning something new
  • Show clients that you have your act together

When is the best time to measure the value of an innovative initiative?

  •  Innovative solutions are often long term, 1year is impact – 2 years is growth
  • Continuously, at beginning for benchmarking, after promotion and continuous until you hit success goal.
  • Measure often and include unforeseen benefits.

What matters most in proving the ROI in legal innovation?

Return on Investment is a performance measure used to compare the efficiency of different investment options or to evaluate the profitability of a chosen investment. But, innovation can be tricky. There is an immediate cost benefit that can be measured, but there are other, more elusive factors to consider when evaluating the true value of innovation.

As a fundamental rule, you have to meet the needs of your clients. There is no value in providing a solution without first defining the problem. This is how you know that you have identified a genuine use case. This is possibly the most evangelized, but also the most ignored, advice to any innovation team. Once you have identified the problem, you then identify and understand the target user. Who are you serving? What, exactly, are their needs? Will they adopt the solution? How can you facilitate that? When you have answered these questions, then you can further scope out the solution and build it.

Finally, you evaluate whether users are actually adopting the solution and whether the solution successfully addresses the use case. The best solution is a waste of resources if it’s not being used. A great way to measure all this is to set up metrics along the way and populate as much as possible during the process.

Quantitative v. qualitative value? How do you measure that?

As mentioned above, it is easy to measure increased revenue because it is a clear quantitative measure. Qualitative measures on the other hand should also be used to evaluate innovative initiatives. It humanizes the quantitative evidence presented. But how do you measure these other factors that make an innovative solution a success? One way is to measure client engagement. Make the client part of the process. This is a great way to have the client experience firsthand that we have our act together. This not only makes for happier customers, but it also helps to secure future work.

Another measurable benefit of many innovative solutions is risk reduction. Reducing risk benefits law firms in particular. Let’s also not discount an educational benefit with learning something new – keeping the target user engaged with an innovative solution is itself a benefit to the organization. With all these values, the key is to define what end stage success looks like and measure against that. Has the solution met the needs of the client; has it increased efficiency or productivity; has it provided a return on investment?

When is the best time to measure the value of an innovative initiative?

Innovative solutions are often long-term projects. After the first year, you see impact; after two years, you see growth. It is therefore imperative to measure continuously.

At the beginning measurements can be used for benchmarking, after promotion of the solution you can measure for adoption. Measurement needs to continue until you hit your success goal. Continuous measurements also have the added advantage of revealing unforeseen benefits that might surprise you.

In the end, value is created when you can provide innovative, efficient solutions that improve the client’s experience.

 



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