Over the past few months there have been many announcements from Thomson Reuters about current and upcoming changes in their business. No doubt this is being driven by increased competitive threats that are affecting all of Thomson Reuters’ business units, including Westlaw’s Legal Research Services. In fact, in December 2018, a Reuters spokesman told CNN Business about the upcoming changes:
Along with this reorganization, Thomson Reuters plans to expand annual sales and to make purchases to help expand its legal and tax businesses. Their business is changing to adapt.
How Westlaw is Changing
Beside a reduction in headcount of 3,200 employees, what other changes are planned? Here’s what information has been released:
- A 30% reduction in office locations to 133 worldwide
- A reduction in the number of sales people per customer
- Changes to how small firms buy services
- A strategic shift to converge products, decreasing the number of products by 11%
- A shift to move products to the cloud, reducing cost of delivery
- Additional resources to expand services for legal and tax businesses
What Does this Mean for Westlaw Customers?
Much of the competitive pressure impacting Westlaw has already been felt in other industries. We’ve seen providers in other markets change to improve efficiencies and lower pricing. By consolidating products, shifting to cloud services and transitioning to a strong inside sales model, Westlaw is also changing to keep up with changes in technology and service delivery.
While there’s quite a bit of speculation as to how these changes will impact Westlaw’s legal research customers. Let’s consider several topics most important to you:
Editorial Quality – This is a major wildcard that is tough to measure. But given Westlaw’s impressive 93% customer retention rate and strong market share, we anticipate that quality will remain a priority.
Customer Support – We’ve already seen and heard anecdotal evidence of cutbacks in customer service.
Training and Onsite Training – We have seen evidence and do anticipate that onsite training services will be reduced, particularly for small firms and do know about trainers that have been let go.
Sales Engagement & Support – We know that the remaining sales organization has changed with larger territories and greater responsibilities. This means that reps will be spread thin and need to prioritize their efforts. We expect that there will be more of an emphasis on inside sales support, particularly for small firms. We’ve also seen evidence that territory sizes have increased for sales representatives servicing mid-sized firms, that is firms with 11-150 attorneys.
Next Steps. Minimize the Impact of Westlaw’s Changes to Your Firm
As a leading provider of legal research services, Westlaw has compelling offerings with imperative value to their customers. We expect and recommend that many of their current clients will want to continue subscribing to Westlaw services.
There are two fundamental questions that we believe should be addressed, regardless of which service provider is selected.
- How does your firm get the greatest value from their legal research provider? Are you getting the necessary research services your firm requires without overpaying?
- Given recent changes at Westlaw, how does your firm simplify the complexity of working with this provider so you can focus on your core business?
We believe that the answer to both questions is surprisingly simple. For little or no cost to your firm, engage an outside expert who knows Westlaw’s business inside and out. Let your staff focus on your core business while leveraging the proficiency of a single point of contact to manage your research vendor.
Your outside expert should be able to help you identify the packages/services your firm uses and those that are ignored. They should know how to quickly identify and engage the Westlaw resources that you need for sales, training, support, billing, and more. They should be able to alert you when critical contract changes occur, such as changing the cancelation clause for automatic renewal from 30-days to 60-days.
What’s most important is how these changes impact your firm. To schedule a brief conversation, feel free to contact us. We can help give you specifics on what to expect for your circumstances.