BUILDING A NE BUSINESS MODEL FOR CLIENTS AND LA FIRMS...secure new business • Keeps overheads low...
Transcript of BUILDING A NE BUSINESS MODEL FOR CLIENTS AND LA FIRMS...secure new business • Keeps overheads low...
BUILDING A NEW BUSINESS MODEL FOR CLIENTS AND LAW FIRMS AKRAN | CASE STUDY
ABOUT AKRAN
AKRAN is an Italian specialist IP law firm
supporting clients with their intellectual
property rights in various jurisdictions around
the world. A recent spin-off from a large
Italian IP law firm, AKRAN currently employs
18 fee-earning lawyers and is growing rapidly.
Around 30% of its practice is in Italy, another
30% elsewhere in Europe and the remainder is
spread evenly across the rest of the world.
PARTNERSHIP GOALS
• Establish a new business model to create a
low-overhead IP law firm, with prosecution
and litigation capabilities
• Fulfill demand from AKRAN clients to meet
the pressures of managing IP
• Address restrictive European
labour laws
• Incorporate flexibility and scalability to
seamlessly accommodate business growth
SERVICES USED
• Trademark Paralegal Support
• Transactional support
• FoundationIP® - IP Management Software
KEY BENEFITS
• Delivers a competitive edge that helps
secure new business
• Keeps overheads low and protects margins
• Highly skilled personnel available on
demand
• Complete transparency over how IP is
managed
Newly launched IP specialist law firm AKRAN has built a lean and agile structure from the ground up. Leveraging CPA Global as the firm’s business partner, AKRAN is delivering a quality service to its international clients and helping corporate IP teams to meet the pressures of managing IP.
PROJECT SUMMARY
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THE CHALLENGE
AKRAN founder Alessandro Masetti was
dissatisfied with the traditional law firm
business model he felt no longer worked
for firms or their clients. A low-overhead
alternative would enable him to cut
IP management costs for his corporate clients
while protecting his own margins. However,
European and domestic labour laws made
it difficult to quickly recruit during peak
business periods and also proved too inflexible
should there be a downturn in demand.
Alessandro’s vision was to create a lean and
agile law firm that could deliver high quality
professional work to international clients
without incurring unnecessary costs. He
decided that AKRAN should be built with a
structure that comprehensively supported its
18 fee-earning lawyers, yet operated with a
skeleton in-house staff. The firm consequently
appointed CPA Global to implement the best
systems and processes to achieve this, as well
as provide all the transactional and paralegal
support required to make the new business
model work.
THE SOLUTION
Enabling cost efficient attorney and client
partnerships
AKRAN recognised the need to work with an
experienced service provider that understood
its requirements and had an established global
presence. It therefore appointed CPA Global
as its service partner, tasking the company
with all aspects of its trademark paralegal and
transactional support team.
AKRAN implemented CPA Global’s hosted
IP management solution, FoundationIP,
enabling the newly established firm to get up
and running immediately. With no hardware
to install and maintain, FoundationIP allowed
for instant collaboration between AKRAN and
CPA Global’s international delivery centres for
fulfilment of paralegal support requirements.
AKRAN has an experienced trademark
paralegal as the firm’s European point of
contact in CPA Global’s Munich office.
This paralegal then works with the company’s
global delivery centre to obtain the specialist
knowledge and expertise for any territory
where this is required. All work is quality
checked within the Munich office before
being returned to the client via FoundationIP,
ensuring complete transparency and
consistency of work across all jurisdictions.
As AKRAN was a brand new law firm, it
was also very difficult to predict future
workload. CPA Global therefore used its
six-step onboarding methodology to build
the client support strategy that would meet
AKRAN’s business objectives and enable the
firm to grow. The firm utilised CPA Global’s
IP ‘pay as you go’ model, which provides a
list of services and associated costs. AKRAN
could simply pick and choose from the list of
services with no long-term commitment or
deadline to use them.
AKRAN’s model clearly resonated with
corporate IP departments who were looking
for a more productive partnership with their
external counsel in order to decrease
IP management costs. Several clients followed
AKRAN in its new venture, leading to a
AKRAN | CASE STUDY 3
dramatic and sustained increase in the levels
of transactional and trademark paralegal
support it required. As a result, within the first
three months, AKRAN reached a point where
it could consider a full-time equivalent model,
with CPA Global providing the firm with
dedicated paralegal support staff.
THE KEY BENEFITS
A highly flexible, skilled and cost effective paralegal resource on demand
Eliminates IT operational and
development costs
As a centralised and cloud-based
IP management system, FoundationIP
provides guaranteed uptime and
transparency for AKRAN and its clients.
Protects margins and promotes cost savings
Employing CPA Global as its support
partner enables AKRAN to operate with
significantly lower overheads than a
traditionally structured law firm. It can deliver
high-quality work at a lower cost, without
impacting its profitability.
Offers built-inflexibility and agility
This lean and agile model enables AKRAN
to precisely match committed resources to
actual workload. Instant scalability enables
AKRAN to meet all short-term spikes in
workload without taking on additional staff
that may not be required and would impact
long-term profitability.
Access to specialist knowledge and expertise
As an international IP and legal services
outsourcing specialist, CPA Global offers
trademark support expertise in multiple
jurisdictions around the world, providing
AKRAN with detailed market knowledge
when advising clients in these jurisdictions.
ABOUT CPA GLOBAL
CPA Global is the world’s leading IP management and technology
company, trusted by many of the world’s respected corporations and
law firms. Our integrated offering is underpinned by an outstanding
global team of 2,000 people.
Now we offer customers The IP Platform: delivering integrated
Innovation and IP Portfolio software, services and insights across the
entire Idea Lifecycle, supporting customers every step of the way to
realise the value of their ideas.
For further information please contact us at
CPA Global was and continues to be instrumental to our success and business growth. Together we can deliver a high quality multinational service to clients on much better terms.
ALESSANDRO MASETTIFOUNDING PARTNER