Professional practices advisory consulting

From law firms and financial advisors to GP surgeries and surveyors, professional practices face significant challenges:

• Pricing pressure from clients, leading to a market-wide focus on cost reduction, process streamlining and outsourcing
• Historically limited investment in technology, data and analytics, impacting operational efficiency and draining management time and project resources
• Increased competition, leading to mergers and acquisitions for growth and differentiation
• New ways of raising capital, creating both opportunities and threats
• Risk and regulatory pressures
• Competition for talent and clients based on cultural values, requiring practices to balance profit and purpose

Our partner-led services offer strategic advice that will deliver the best solution for your firm. Combining industry experience and expertise in data analytics, we identify root causes and work to optimise performance.

Sustaining revenue and profit growth is getting harder for professional practices. Investments in systems, data and analytics, and rising staff costs are putting pressure on firms, and on fee earners to boost billable hours.

Better lock-up management is one option for financing investments. Increasing client fees, cost control and operational efficiency are also on the agenda.

We combine data-driven analytics with commercial acumen to help firms to work smarter.

• Maximising margin and operational efficiency: we conduct segmented analytical reviews of margin, pricing strategy and pricing practice by team. Analysing recovery rates, utilisation and billing adjustments by grade and team can identify root causes of underperformance. It enables firms to target realistic improvements rather than purely pushing fee earners to increase billable hours. We can also produce live dashboards for ongoing management of these key performance indicators
• Reducing costs and streamlining operations: we combine benchmarking with bottom-up overhead cost reviews and propose areas for improvements. We also review procurement processes and practices with a focus on pricing, economies of scale and payment terms. With significant experience in post-acquisition integration support, we can work with your firm to help you realise synergies, streamline processes and resolve legacy issues. With increases in remote and hybrid working, our real estate experts can also support transitions to leaner operating models
• Optimising lock-up and working capital: our analytical lock-up review by team can pull relevant information from both practice management software and accounting systems. We can identify targeted improvement opportunities and go beyond lock-up to focus on disbursement payment cycles and overhead working capital management

Across projects, industries and clients, we ensure enduring change and deliver successful outcomes:

• Integration projects aligning processes and procedures, with a focus on regulatory requirements, including GDPR, client money and billing processes
• Operational efficiency improvement with cost reduction reviews and implementation support
• Delivering asset-based lending facilities (such as disbursement funding) to better fund working capital cycles without utilising firm cash
• Using technology and data analysis to stratify elements of lock-up and working capital to improve the net position, including exception reporting
• Identifying and resolving cash drains and identifying cash improvement opportunities
• Reviewing and optimising integrated financial forecasting models and short-term cash flow forecasts to ensure visibility and accuracy
• Implementing live dashboards to track KPI delivery, with drilldowns and performance tracking by team
• Resolution projects, including data cleansing and alignment and backlog clearance projects

Our team is forward-thinking but draws on deep experience with professional practices across industries to ensure we meet your objectives and needs.