Part #3 of the Five-Part Series “Top 5 ELM Benefits”
Build a Stronger Case for ELM with Proven Benefits Through Cost Savings Ideas
Many Legal teams struggle to prove the value of advanced legal technology. At the same time, finding budget for new tools is crucial to manage the growing demands of today’s global business environment. More responsibilities, a larger role in strategic decisions, and staff shortages all highlight the need for additional support. As discussed in our last blog, gathering evidence to remove doubts is key when adding new tools. Enterprise Legal Management (ELM) systems are designed to help Legal Ops reduce costs and make better use of data.
ELM provides the most compelling Cost Savings Ideas to validate the technology purchase
The best evidence comes from ELM solutions that create cost-saving opportunities for the entire business. That is the focus of this blog article, but that is only one answer to the question that helps decision-makers sign the purchase order for Ascent ELM. What is that big question? Simply stated it’s this, “What benefits can my organization expect after implementing an ELM solution?” Over the next installments in this blog series, we’ll continue to explore those answers together.
In this series of blogs, we will continue to take a deep dive into the Top 5 benefits of ELM.
Read the blog articles:
➡️ ELM Benefit #1 – Increased Efficiency
➡️ ELM Benefit #2 – Data Transparency
ELM provides cost savings ideas that make it #3 in our Top 5 list
Corporations face increased pressure to lower operating costs, but they must also have the confidence that they can remain competitive in a rapidly growing global business environment. One common way of accomplishing this is to require all business units (departments) to reduce expenses. In fact, Legal Department clients have reported that they’re being asked to cut outside legal spending by as much as 20%. As stated earlier, Legal is shouldering more responsibilities than ever before. So how can they take on more work and still lower expenses to meet goals? Clients tell us that they have two choices when faced with these new business goals:
Clients view the quick fix of reducing staff as negative because it often leads to overworked teams, lack of job satisfaction, and lower morale. Not to mention the lost expense in building their skills. This can result in the “Law of Diminishing Returns.” That’s where the benefit of reducing FTEs initially reaches the spend reduction goal, but the same workload can’t be managed for long by reduced staff. The extra work wears down the remaining team and they begin to make mistakes, miss tasks, or simply leave for a less stressful job. Then it’s inevitable – the work can’t be done! Sooner or later, the workload increases again, and the only solution is to add more staff. Reducing staff doesn’t work in the long run, so Legal needs a better solution.
Businesses must seek sustainable ways to get the work done more efficiently while meeting their cost-saving goals. Advanced LegalTech has long been a more viable way to achieve this. In the long run, it can even provide enough ROI to pay for the solution. Adding technology to the tool set comes with a number of pros and cons that may add costs to your solutions. Evaluate the total cost of ownership to determine the best path forward for your organization
Pros:
- Technology enables teams to handle more tasks in less time
- Process automation provides significant cost savings
- Vendor consolidation offers ways to combine costs
- Systems collect and provide rich data points to help identify savings opportunities
- Business data is more transparent, allowing business units to easily collaborate to save expenses
Cons:
- The initial cost to bring in the tool (implementation, consultant fees, training)
- Employee lack of adoption
- System complexity issues
- Cost of customization to fit existing processes
Costs vary by provider. Do your homework and you’ll find that some ELM software providers have a low upfront cost, but charge for everything after the sale. These hidden fees can create “buyer’s remorse” because the unexpected monthly invoices are different each time. Ascent ELM is one of the few solutions that give you an all-inclusive upfront cost at a predictable price each month. The result? Less stress and uncertainty: Our clients say it gives them peace of mind.
NINJA TIP: No one wants to live in doubt about the cost of their ELM solution. Not every provider charges the same for its services: some charge for any change or additional capabilities you might add after you sign. They may also charge for any customization you request in the future. Seek out the providers that deliver an all-inclusive product like DiliTrust’s Ascent ELM that includes system configuration at no extra charge and without consultants. The cost is upfront and predictable.
What are the top ELM cost savings ideas?
Ascent ELM has proven its ability to reduce legal department expenses and fees in many areas, regardless of its global location or the markets they serve. Many savings opportunities span the entire business, some span across business unit lines to compound the savings, and still others focus on the Legal department itself.
The most common saving opportunities are:
- Automating repetitive processes and repurposing staff onto higher-value tasks
- Boosting team efficiency with workload improvements
- Consolidating vendors
- Eliminating the billable hour with AFAs
In the age of global business, it’s critical that businesses be as cost-conscious as possible. To understand how one system can benefit the entire business, we will demonstrate how each area of savings is possible to reach. Because there are other savings opportunities that may be available to your unique business, it’s always best to speak to an ELM expert.
We’ll use client case study data to help show the powerful information that helps you choose with greater confidence.
Automate Processes & Repurpose Staff
Legal departments have defined processes that allow the team to manage their coordinated workload. One notable change is that the Legal departments are now facing increased responsibilities beyond the typical legal tasks and risk avoidance work. The new work they shoulder covers areas such as business strategic input, corporate responsibility governance, brand reputation, intellectual property protection, etc. – and those additional needs bring in more work. How can a team take on more responsibility with the same if not fewer staff?
Automation has long been the buzzword to improve savings, but what does it really include? Automation within the Ascent ELM system comes down to creating more efficient ways to handle multiple, repetitive tasks without assigning them to the team. By configuring the system to process invoices with the appropriate billing rules and corporate review procedures (approvals, adjustments, or rejection criteria), many tasks can be completed by the system in a fraction of the time. This can save a corporation handling thousands of invoices millions of dollars in cost savings in one year.
How is this possible? ELM systems can perform a ‘first-pass’ automated rules check on invoices to ensure they comply with UTBMS standards and corporate guidelines before human review. Once approved by the system, the invoice enters the human review queue for final approval. With this automation, a 30-day review can be completed in just 3 days. Clients report that faster bill payments open up savings opportunities, like early-payment discounts of up to 2%. Automation also reduces human error during the review process, cutting wasted time, incorrect approvals, and duplicate payments. As a result, clients see multi-million dollar savings.
Moreover, automation often improves inter-departmental communication, collaboration with in-house and outside vendors, and business data integration. With routine tasks handled by the ELM system, staff can focus on higher-value tasks like research, court filings, and case preparation. Furthermore, clients report improved job satisfaction, helping retain skilled staff longer. This reduces hiring, training, and turnover costs. We’ll explore this benefit in more detail in our next article.
Improving Team Efficiency
Efficiency is a key goal for Legal Operations. Many teams seek advanced tools to better manage their growing workload. But do more tools equal more efficiency? The answer is yes—if the tools align with your needs. To understand efficiency, we ask: ‘How is team efficiency measured?’ It’s based on factors like the right skill sets, task completion rates, results, and costs. If a team meets these criteria, efficiency improves. However, many businesses lack systems to measure or track these factors. Without clear insights, improvement is challenging. The solution for many is tools like Ascent ELM, which provide valuable insights and help identify areas for improvement
Providing this deep dive into the data and delivering improvement insights is part of the holistic design of Ascent ELM. These systems collect operational data, process and analyze it, and then deliver insights on your spending, where things are working well, and where things are not. Team efficiency can now be transparent and once you know how and where you are spending your time and money, you can begin the process of improving it. No one can dispute the overwhelming evidence that when a business improves its efficiency, it will save more money
Consolidate Vendors
Most legal departments have a list of outside counsel and legal vendors they have as go-to resources. Other corporations allow them to pick and choose who they work with on a case-by-case basis. From our experience working with hundreds of clients, there are best practices that help provide optimal savings opportunities. With this in mind, we share those practices with you.
One of the first savings opportunities is Vendor Consolidation. Without clear guidelines on which outside counsel to use, it’s impossible to save costs. By vetting and consolidating your counsel to a smaller, high-performing group, you can reduce costs. Evaluating law firms and scoring them by task performance helps create your ‘Top Gun’ list of vendors. What if your ELM system could generate this list with a simple report? It would save time, money, and staff effort. Ascent ELM offers Vendor Scorecards, grading vendors based on performance and costs, making it easy to track and manage.
Once your entire legal department uses this list for outside legal work, you unlock the power to negotiate better pricing with your outside counsel and third-party vendor list. The relationship becomes a two-way business relationship through building a stronger, trusted partnership based on performance and price. The law firm gains a more predictable revenue stream handling the assigned tasks you agree on. For this promise, your work is handled by a trusted partner that agrees to do that work at a preferred cost.
Eliminate the Billable Hour with AFAs
Replacing billable hours with Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFAs) has been a slow process. AFAs include flat-rate, capped, or contingency-based billing. The days of writing a blank check to law firms are numbered due to lack of oversight, justification, and rate negotiation. The ‘That’s what we always charge’ mentality is fading. Clients now demand better service at lower rates. The solution? Legal departments are shifting to performance-based billing methods. As this trend grows, ELM systems are adding features to enable more predictable billing. DiliTrust’s Ascent ELM module offers full support for managing these billing methods, ensuring oversight and detailed reporting.
ELM systems can handle most billing methods, but the benefit of Ascent ELM comes from its ability to help teams decide on the best method for their legal needs. To simplify the path the greater savings, Ascent ELM provides a complete AFA component built into the system to help clients leverage this advantageous change. AFA capabilities offer the ability to track actual costs vs. AFA billing, so teams can compare the billable hour vs. the performance billing. Billing methods often change: To ensure the most savings, it’s best to choose an ELM system capable of tracking, analyzing, and reporting on every matter cost. Know where and what you’re spending.
What are Ascent ELM Clients Saying?
Client Success is always the focus when it comes to measuring business success for DiliTrust. When clients gain the most from their ELM system, we’ve kept our promise to deliver optimized legal technology. Clients want time- and cost-saving ideas to prove their decision was a good one, and they provide the business with the best chance for success. ELM systems are proving their worth time and time again, but it’s the recurring results that prove it.
Let’s take a few reported examples from global market-leading businesses to demonstrate the extreme savings possible with Ascent ELM. Their experiences within various disparate markets over the past years clearly offer the evidence you can use to build a winning case for ELM technology.
NINJA TIP: Evidence showing cost-saving ideas work for other businesses suggests that similar companies can achieve the same benefits with the right provider. However, the system is just one part of the equation. Equally important is having knowledgeable ELM experts who can apply their expertise to your system. For example, DiliTrust has many success stories and clients eager to share their experiences. Their results highlight how Ascent ELM exceeded expectations.
What’s next?
In this series of blogs, we will continue to cover the Top 5 benefits of ELM and what each offers to modern business teams.
Next, we’ll cover the fourth benefit of implementing ELM systems in year #1 – Repurposing resources, both internal and external.
If you’re ready to move forward; you can also request a demo now.