New company Chairman, Bruce Wilson, provides an overview of the reasons behind Wilson Allen’s merger with LAC Group.
Last week, Wilson Allen announced it is merging with LAC Group, a leading provider of research and intelligence expertise to legal and corporate clients. Read the full media release here. As a combined entity, we will be able to create new service offerings to help law firms solve their needs for better technology, intelligence and people resourcing solutions.
The merger is an exciting next stage in Wilson Allen’s progress. Over the last decade, we have experienced steady growth, attracting specialist expertise and delivering high-quality legal technology projects for a growing base of satisfied clients.
But in the last 18 months, we have realized that the market is shifting, and so are our clients’ needs. To support our clients in what is now a highly charged market, we needed to change the shape of our business and delivery models, and those changes required additional services and funding.
Listening to our customers
As was evident in the research we assembled for our Wilson Allen OnTech report released earlier in the year, our customers are now tackling different operational issues. Uppermost in their minds is that the war for talent is undermining their ability to execute business-as-usual processes.
In addition, they want to invest in new capabilities, need delivery flexibility, and work with fewer—but more trusted—suppliers who will work with them as partners and provide ‘white glove’ service to support their digital transformation journey. In its current shape, Wilson Allen wasn’t providing the breadth of services our clients require to attract and retain talent and meet these future market challenges.
Having listened to those signals, we wanted to respond positively by showing a willingness to step up and innovate in these areas to help our clients address these new market challenges. This is the impetus behind our new company approach.
A logical step forward
The merger with LAC Group is the next logical step in our growth and will help us change how we do business. LAC Group began down this path several years ago. It changed its business model and approach to customer engagement by developing flexible resourcing models and new self-service options for its research and intelligence-based services. It has been a demonstrable success, and as a result, its leadership team brings valuable know-how to the table.
Reconstituting the company in this way provides the ideal time for me to step back into a non-operational role. I will, however, continue to be part of what is now an even more experienced leadership team, fulfilling strategic guidance responsibilities and continuing to nurture the client relationships I have built during my tenure.
Greater market offerings
There are exciting opportunities for collaboration within our specialist arena of providing intelligence, research, and technology expertise to professional services organizations. As a merged company, we will be better able to combine our skills and broaden our partnerships with clients to help them transform their businesses. This will help simplify lines of supply—something customers have indicated is vitally important to them as they scale.
Shortly, as we combine our ideas and innovation capabilities, we will launch comprehensive managed service offerings and new ways to provide clients with the expertise and resourcing they need to best leverage their demand for intelligence, technology, and data solutions.
Customers will always come first
LAC Group and Wilson Allen have similar cultures. Over and above our expertise, we are professionals who realize that delivering excellent service is the benchmark that matters most to our customers. Our objective for the new company is to maintain close client relationships and to build on the synergies between our respective teams.
We will not become a large, faceless service delivery machine. We know customers want to continue dealing with knowledgeable, caring professionals, and that will continue to be fundamental to our brand.
For now, the companies will continue to operate side-by-side under the two brands, with Wilson Allen providing technology solutions and support and LAC providing information services. But please watch this space because, within the next few months, we will go through an exercise to create a new brand that supports the vision of our unified company—a company that has a larger workforce, an enhanced position in the market and the support of a strong financial partner.
Read more about the merger in this exclusive legaltechnology.com article
