top
of mind
®
“How do you meet next-generation legal challenges in the consulting business?”
“Standardize,
automate and
measure.”
At Sapient, the core functions in our Global Shared
Services -- legal, operations, HR, and finance -- have transcended
the threadbare categories of the past in performing our roles for
the company. As part of an initiative we call “Velocity,” we have
sought to standardize, automate and measure our key practices to
improve quality and reduce costs.
Velocity is an exercise in continuous improvement, and technology is our friend. We have people reporting along lines that
make sense to the business right now, instead of how it used to
be. For example, as General Counsel, I head a global team that
includes not only in-house lawyers, but also deal-focused finance
people and an operations group in our India office that handles
worldwide contracts administration. We’re integrated, and our
reporting reflects this fact.
Velocity has a number of features:
First, there is workflow automation and document management.
This is crucial to improving efficiencies.
Second, we have a deal administration team or “DAT,” based in
India. The DAT tracks our contracting processes throughout the
world and measures quantitative and qualitative performance.
Third, with certain safeguards in place (including on-line training
and certification), we empower our business-side consultants to
use “self-service” in negotiating and concluding contracts below a
certain level of materiality.
We benchmark our Velocity results against four goals that are
uniform for all Global Shared Services: service levels; innovation
and issue prevention; value ratio; and process efficiencies. By
using metrics to track our performance against these goals, we can
measure operational improvements and, also, our compliance with
SOX and other regulatory requirements.
Jane Owens
Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary
Sapient Corporation
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Clients engage Sapient to improve their businesses, and we
have turned the same bright light of innovation and change upon
ourselves. With Velocity, we’re anticipating and meeting the nextgeneration legal challenges in the consulting business.
Each month, K&L Gates presents Top of Mind®—a leading
in-house lawyer’s take on key issues shaping business and
legal strategies.
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