What this presentation is for
Context 2009-2013
Structure
Tay aylor Vinters
Significant
Growth
progress – exciting
times 2013-2017
Summary – the next four years
Measuring success
What this means for the business
What this means for our people
Great people
Focus Innovation Collaboration
Conclusion
What this presentation is for Call it what you want but it’s designed to help us communicate what we are about as an organisation – what drives everything that we do and how that translates into practice for us as an organisation and as individuals. Four years ago we launched a brochure called Significant Times. This presentation brings us up to date and, with the confidence of four years’ experience operating in a very different world, attempts to say more in fewer words. Our words. It should help everyone interested in our business to understand what the underlying ambition of our business is – the why behind all our decisions. It will help explain who we are – our underlying values and culture. Finally it identifies what we do and how we intend to achieve our ambition.
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It is not the answer to every question you might have*. It is a set of principles and benchmarks which should hopefully help you find an answer for yourself. It is a reference point for all our decisions and should hopefully ensure we maintain a strong sense of common purpose and direction and encourage all of us to be the best we can be. So, welcome to
* More detail can be found in the annual budgets, team plans and our individual objectives. These will change and adapt as circumstances change. The decisions and statements in this document will not change so readily.
Context 2009-2013 In 2009 we set out to become: ■
Financially secure
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Highly rewarding
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Surprising to our clients
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Irritating to our competitors
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pragmatism, authenticity, friendliness and our contrary nature.
Fun and dynamic.
We made a commitment to move up the food chain by identifying and investing in our strengths, using the Cambridge brand as a shorthand. We envisaged a business operating in Cambridge, London and internationally. It was about ambition and growth and it enabled us to make confident steps forward as a business while seeking to preserve the positive aspects of our culture –
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There have been many challenges in that period – the global economic meltdown, exponential social and technological change and the liberalisation of our market bringing new and different competition. In that context we can and should be proud of what we have achieved. Four years on, we have a stronger platform to succeed in our ambition, we have a better understanding of how much further we have to go and we have greater confidence to see it through. We have no crystal ball, however. Change is the only certainty in our world, so everything we have done and will continue to do is about ensuring that Taylor Vinters is ready to meet whatever challenge or opportunity comes along.
20092013
What this means for the business As a business, we will continue to position ourselves as a premium brand in a limited number of key legal markets, leading on Technology, Investment and Private Client. We will operate in Cambridge, London and Singapore and continue to develop our international capability.
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We will ensure we have a structure and operational platform that is aligned with our strategy and retains, attracts and encourages the best people (who share our ambition and values) to the organisation while creating a culture of continual improvement.
2013-2017
What the business will do We will utilise Focus, Innovation and Collaboration to allow us to prioritise our independence and personality over growth.
20132017
2013-2017 2013-2017
What this means for our people Individually, we will aim to be the best at whatever we do, and settle for nothing less from ourselves. We will be smart about how we do things and constantly challenge ourselves to find a better way. Finally, we will remember to enjoy ourselves, support/respect each other and be proud of our achievements.
2013-2017
We will be the best at whatever we do on our terms - a commitment to excellence with the confidence to be ourselves.
2013-2017
Summary â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the next four years...
What this means for the business
The second part, ‘on our own terms’ also has meaning. It puts value on personality and prioritises excellence and personality over growth. It is based on a long-term view that big is fine but smart is better. What we have learnt over the past four years of operating in a new reality is that we have to address our limitations, not in our ambition or our capability, but in our bandwidth and resources: ■
We are small so to be the best at anything we have to be focused. More focused than we have ever been in the past
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■
The limitation in our resources and bandwidth means we need to collaborate – in building our network, in sharing cost and resources, and in exploiting our ideas. We should have confidence in the value we can offer in this context.
To facilitate this we need to ensure our structure supports the principles of focus, innovation and collaboration that will deliver that ambition – being the best at whatever we do on our own terms.
Associated action In the next 12 months: communicate what we are about to the outside world to reinforce our brand and at the same time engage everyone in the organisation and our stakeholders to ensure we deliver on that brand.
Be the best – on your own terms
The driver to be the best informs our market position – to be a high-value brand known for doing premium work for premium clients. It also provides a benchmark against which to make our decisions.
Be the best – on your own terms
own terms
Be the best – on your own terms
Everything we do will be driven by an ambition to be the best on our own terms. At a firm-wide level there are two important parts to this:
We have limited resources, so we have to be innovative. More innovative than our larger competitors and with a confidence that identifies and celebrates this difference – not apologises for it
Be the best – on your own terms
■
Be the best
An overview in practice
What this means for our people We all need to understand how our behaviour and contribution will make a difference. That is why the commitment to be the best at whatever we do on our terms is so important. It provides the personal steer we need as well as the organisational benchmark. So, aim to be the best at what you do, and settle for nothing less from yourself. Be smart about how you do things and constantly challenge yourself to find a better way. Finally, remember to enjoy yourself, support/respect
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each other and be proud of our achievements as we go â&#x20AC;&#x201C; because it is never as easy as it sounds. If we all do that, then that is what the firm will be like. Ultimately, Taylor Vinters is all of us.
Associated action In the next 12 months: a programme of training and team-based exercises to review how we can deliver excellence in every aspect of what we do.
Personality with excellence
A user manual for the individual
Consequently, we know we need to do three things really well: ■
Retain great people and attract more great people who share our values and aspiration
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Give them the opportunity to fulfil their potential
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Celebrate when they do.
In the past we have not always got these things right but we have learnt a lot.
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So our priority in 2013 and beyond is to align everything in our organisation to our values and aspiration – what we encourage, measure, reward and celebrate.*
Associated action In the next 12 months: develop broader performance measures aligned to what we value.
* We also recognise how hard it has been in the last four years and so we will make sure that we invest in enjoying the ride – it is not likely to get any easier.
Align our values
Excellence and personality is in our people. Everything else is about aligning them to a common purpose and supporting them to fulfil their potential.
We now understand that to be attractive, we have to be clear and consistent in our message – about our values and ambition – but then we also need to ensure that across the firm we behave in a way that is consistent with those values and that ambition.
Align everything to our values and ambitions
Our key ingredient
to our values and ambitions
Great people
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Associated action In the next 12 months: continued investment in people and profile around our key areas of focus allied to team-based programmes to enhance the value they offer in our key areas of business.
Investment Investment
Private client
Allied to that, a clear and tangible focus for the business will also help clients understand what we are excellent for. There is only so much that we can be really good at. So we will only specialise in areas of expertise or sectors where our experience, infrastructure and resources will allow us to be the best.
This will be the basis of our warranty to clients.
Private client
So in terms of value, we are making a firm commitment to sit in the upmarket. We will only operate where we can be truly excellent, where we can provide strategic as well as technical advice and where we can offer genuine value to clients who need more than just process or information.
We will build our firm-wide reputation around Technology, Investment and private client. We will do other things but only if we are confident they can build on that reputation. We will not do things where we cannot (but help the clients find an alternative advisor who can).
Investment
Our clients and stakeholders need to understand the value that we offer and the areas of the market in which we can offer it. Crucially, we need to understand that too and stick to it.
Investment
Focus
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Training and recruitment
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Continued investment and
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Challenging complacency.
If we don’t want to have to prioritise growth in order to leverage our operating costs we must find smarter ways to operate. If necessity is the mother of invention then our desire for self-determination is our driver. We have a proven confidence and desire to innovate. In the past four years a drive to constantly drive for better has delivered us significant and measurable improvements in quality and efficiency and we will build on this.
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A culture of innovation will see us improve the detail and efficiency of what we do behind the scenes and ensure that what we offer clients in frontline service delivery is cutting-edge. These are ambitions that will be realised by everyone being committed to finding a better way.
Associated action In the next 12 months: deliver the next phase of the process review and virtualisation project.
Always
Encouragement and reward
looking for a better way
Always
■
Always looking
Innovation
to achieve Working
Working with
others to
Collaboration
â&#x2013;
Join forces with other business to share costs, networks, ideas and investment while maintaining our independence
â&#x2013;
Identify alternatives for our clients when they need help with something where we cannot be the best.
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In the next 12 months: complete and embed the joint venture in respect of our financial services business.
Working with others to achieve
Find other businesses to invest in and commercially exploit our law firm platform
Associated action
Working with others to achieve
â&#x2013;
Taylor Vinters will continue to seek out business partners or like-minded firms willing to work with us to help us achieve our ambition.
to achieve
We can do that in a number of ways both formally and informally, for example:
Working with others to achieve
We can achieve more as a business if we are open to, and actively seek out, collaboration. It will supplement and support innovation.
achieve
Support our entrepreneurial approach to the business and the identified need to focus, innovate and collaborate.
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In the next 12 months: review our business structure to ensure it is aligned to our strategy.
A framework for success
We continue to believe that there is an opportunity to increase engagement and increase our ability to retain talent by opening up more opportunity for people to take a true proprietorial interest in the business so we will look at how best to achieve this in practical terms while balancing the interests of the various stakeholders.
Associated action
framework
â&#x2013;
for success
Increase engagement through greater opportunity for involvement in and ownership of the business
A framework
â&#x2013;
A framework for success
We need our structure to be flexible in order to:
Allied to that, we believe that we can support our business priorities by viewing Taylor Vinters as a portfolio and, where appropriate, creating separate business entities to reflect this. These entities can utilise different legal, governance and business models. They can support different models for ownership and management.
A framework for success
Establishing a framework for success
A framework
Structure
A framework
for success
The tail, not the dog
not the dog
The tail, not the dog
In the next 12 months: bed in our latest recruits and continue a measured search for lateral hires or bolt-ons that enhance our focus and culture.
The tail, not the dog
On the other hand, being smaller (or at least growing more slowly) has an upside – particularly in a consolidating market – where it may well be that many law firms end up looking very similar with a generic feel and culture. So, big is fine but smart is better.
Associated action
not the dog
The tail not, the dog
If we were bigger our fixed costs would be lower relative to our income and so our profit would increase. That would be a good thing.
The tail,
dog
It would be good to be a bit bigger but we don’t want to be too big.
Crucially, our central values and focus must not be compromised by growth – even if the maths looks good.
not the
The tail, not the dog
The tail not t
Growth
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The tail, not the dog
Keeping the score Profit is never the game, only a way of keeping score. Our pursuit of excellence, rather than financial gain, will inform our success. None the less, we need some benchmarks against which to judge our progress and good financial discipline will give us the space to become the business we aspire to be.
sound financial hygiene reflective of the economic context as we prepare budgets and plans in any given year.
Associated action In the next 12 months: develop and deliver a budget that continues to support the strategy, with a scorecard of broader performance measures to support this.
Excellence RO
Measuring success
Profit
Excellence
Excellence
Consequently, we will ensure that we continue to set ourselves an appropriately balanced scorecard of measures aligned to what is important to us and underpinned by
Excellence
Excellence
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ROI
Conclusion 2013-2017 In 2009 we concluded Significant Times with:
If you have flicked to the end in the hope that reading the conclusion will save you reading the whole document – shame on you – but if you really want a bite-size version click here and learn it off by heart and you might just get away with it. The sentiment of that has not changed but we have.
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We should now have the necessary confidence to succeed
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The confidence to say no when we are asked to do something where a client is not seeking out the value that we have focused on offering
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The confidence to say no if we are asked to do something where we know we cannot offer the value we are aspiring to deliver
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The confidence to keep out in the market with a clear message about what we can do really, really well
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And the confidence to seek proper recognition from the client for the value that we do deliver.