Experience and Results from

Our Predictive Analytics Efforts

HARNESSING PREDICTIVE

ANALYTICS TO DRIVE CLIENT

GROWTH AND RETENTION

#ILTAG26

SPEAKERS

Barbara Taylor

Chief Marketing

Officer

DLA Piper LLP (US)

Heather Reid

Director of Practice

Marketing

DLA Piper LLP (US)

Kim Rennick

Director of Sector

Marketing

DLA Piper LLP (US)

David Kuhlman

Partner

Axiom Consulting

Partners LLC

OUR EXPERIENCE WITH PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS

• The problem we tried to solve

• What we did and why

• What we learned

• How we are applying lessons learned

WE THINK WE

KNOW WHAT

CLIENTS VALUE,

BUT WE REALLY

ONLY KNOW

WHAT PEOPLE

SAY THEY VALUE…

What do clientsreally want?

WE REALLY KNOW LESS THAN WE THINK WE DO

▪ Instinct rarely reveals the combination of needs

that really drive buying behavior.

▪ What exactly makes for a stronger relationship?

▪ Each person believes they have a

master recipe… and they are all different.

▪ “Big data” is NOT doing the same analyses

with more numbers.

▪ True data scientists still rare… and fewer still

know law firms.

COMMON MYTHS COMMON REALITY

“…We have strong analytic talent and can

meet all of our analytical needs in-house…”

“…This is a simple business – stronger

relationships will win us more work…”

“…We know our clients better than what

the data says...”

MORE OF A SKUNKWORKS

RATHER THAN A FIRM INITIATIVE

Concept developed by Marketing

Big data experience + law firm experience

Secured leadership permission

Sourced data internally: Marketing, Finance and HR

Early insights built support and momentum

PREDICT WHO

WOULD SHRINK

VS. GROW:

TURN

SHRINKERS

INTO GROWERS.

1. 7M records: Finance, HR and Marketing

2. 400 separate inputs

3. Two models: ~100 demographic, people, sales

and service, and operations factors

4. Drivers of client fees:

• Indicators

• Action Opportunities

5. Modeled the significant

economic opportunity Growth

Predictors

Growth

Drivers

Clients that

Grew

Clients that

Shrank

What did

we do

differently?

How growers

“look different”

than

shrinkers?

1. Double our

revenue growth

2. Substantially

improve client

retention

PILOT: FOCUSED ON THE CRITICAL FEW THINGS

THAT MATTER MOST.

Four Tactics Seem to Work

Broadly1. Reduce size of matter teams to five or less and

increase time per team member proportionately

where possible

2. Introduce one new professional to the relationship

3. Add one more industry expert to the team

(can be combined with #2)

4. Run a focused, relevant marketing initiative for

each client

Two Targeting Approaches

1. Predicting clients at risk of falling out of love

2. Predicting clients that value us less

FOCUSING

EFFORTS

TAKING

ACTION

SMART, TARGETED EFFORTS TO BUILD

A WILLING COALITION.

Focus

▪ Identify vulnerable clients

▪ Target four highest-impact actions

Target

▪ Prioritize clients based on risk, size

▪ Select Partners and practices open

to change

▪ Remaining become “control group”

for comparison

Compare and Measure

Action

Target Clients for Impact

B a s e d o n r i s k l e v e l a n d f e e p o t e n t i a l

Predictive

Confidence

OPPORTUNITY 2:

Add industry

experts

OPPORTUNITY 1:

Reduce matter

team sizeOPPORTUNITY 4:

Run marketing

campaigns

FY15 Fee

Contribution OPPORTUNITY 3:

Increase new

professionals

Prioritized

Listbased on

combined score

▪ Most at risk

▪ Next most

at risk

▪ Etc.

CONCERTED ACTION AND DILIGENT

MEASUREMENT PROVE IT WORKS.

Focus

Target

Compare and Measure

▪ Compare control to action group

▪ Build business case for broader change

Action

▪ Divide Partners and practices

▪ Tell the story and gain commitment

▪ Monitor to ensure action

CHANGE

MANAGEMENT

STRATEGY

Senior Involvement:

CMO and Directors

willing to pitch in at

a moment’s notice

Coalition of the Willing:

Focus on open-

minded and

interested partners

Steady Pace: Avoid one-

and-done, keeping up

the pace of activity

Accountability for Results:

Marketing Managers

know their ratings

depend on activity

and engagement

Monitor Activity:

More important

for accountability

than results

Flexibility: Willing to

change tactics and

approaches as needed

EMERGING OUTCOMES

• The pilot indicates significant impact to profitable growth…

…focusing our efforts on the Action group we prevented 85% of the projected fee loss

• Financial benefits of taking action appear between four and eight months later

• The more of the four levers pulled, the more likely (and greater) the effect

• Two levers (introducing new professionals and increasing expertise) appear to

individually demonstrate a material impact on fees

• Changes in matter team size alone do not appear to have had a material impact on

fees, at least not yet*

* We suspect that changes in team size are more challenging to execute and very likely take longer to materialize in terms of fee impact.

-32.2%

Actual Fees

JAN-APR’17

If in Action

Group

JAN-APR’16 JAN-APR’16

-4.9%

Actual Fees

JAN-APR’17

If in Control

Group

THE ACTIONS TAKEN IN THE ACTION GROUP

PREVENTED 85% OF THE EXPECTED FEE LOSS

Control Group Fees*(N = 168)

Action Group Fees(N = 154)**

* Comparing the first four months of 2017 with the same period in 2016 on an annualized basis.

** We trimmed four outliers from each group to ensure changes in a few clients were not driving the overall results.

Actual decline in fees is

only 15% of the equivalent

Control Group decline.

Actual decline in fees

for Control Group: 32%.

JAN-APR ’16 If in

Action Group

Actual Fees

JAN-APR ’17

JAN-APR ’16 If in

Control Group

Actual Fees

JAN-APR ’17

REGARDLESS OF GROUP AS WE PULL MORE

LEVERS WE OBSERVE A HIGHER IMPACT ON FEES

Average Monthly Fees vs. Levers Pulled(Action & Control Group Combined)

Levers Pulled

+14%

+20%

-48%

2 or More10

Jan-Apr ’17 Fees

Jan-Apr ’16 Fees

Greater fee increase with

more levers pulled

No levers pulled:

lost revenue

One lever turns

loss into growth

0 1 2 or More

Levers Pulled

NEXT STEPS

1. Update Relationship Partners on the pilot results and continue to

engage the Action group with more of the same actions

2. Expand our focus to include additional clients at risk from the pilot

group that demonstrate high levels of fee contribution

3. Re-run the complete at-risk client list to provide new targets for action

4. Adjust focus and resourcing to increase capacity to engage with

Partners on levers

QUESTIONS?