Returning to a buyer’s market

Returning to a buyer’s market

Ben Mitchell, chief operating officer at Novaplex, discusses how increasing consolidation in the legal technology arena is impacting law firms — and says restoring choice is key to driving innovation

Founded by CEO Michelle Langton, Novaplex has been in the market for over 15 years, offering a comprehensive portfolio of document production tools. Ben Mitchell, who recently joined as its inaugural chief operating officer, says it’s on a mission to restore choice to a market that has become increasingly consolidated in recent years.

With extensive experience in the legal technology industry, he notes the past five years have been “an interesting journey” as recent vendor acquisitions have significantly changed its structure and dynamics. Large law firms are looking to reduce the administrative overhead of managing a vast number of vendors, often viewing the prospect of “buying from a single vendor, or going down the single platform route, as quite advantageous”, he says.

Too many eggs in one basket?

But Mitchell sees a different picture: “Until about five years ago, firms were benefiting from the innovation that sprang from the competitive environment created by smaller vendors vying with one another. Now, they’re being adversely impacted by unjustified price increases, while service levels, pace of innovation and value for money diminish due to a lack of such competition.”

“The key difference is the focus on the customer,” he argues. “The danger for some pursuing growth through an acquisitive model is that — with all that change to manage, stakeholders to satisfy and debt they’d have taken on to buy out other vendors — customer focus can be completely lost. So, while law firms expect these vendors to be focused on driving innovation and delivering excellent service, the reality is often they become entirely internally focused on reducing operational costs and maintaining financial health now that borrowing costs have increased.”

One law firm he spoke with that had signed on to a single platform described the experience as being left thinking it had “put too many eggs in one basket”, effectively “locked in” to a solution that wasn’t working, with little flexibility of choice left. “I’ve seen situations where law firms essentially end up paying twice if they aren’t satisfied with one of the solutions the vendor offers and are forced to seek out another to satisfy the needs of staff at the firm, while the vendor won’t reduce the cost of the enterprise agreement,” he notes.

Consolidation has also created “small monopolies” where in some key areas of legal tech firms now have very limited options — or even only one — leading to eye-watering annual price increases in some cases.

And while returning to a past where firms purchase every solution from a different vendor isn’t the answer, Mitchell argues that greater competition is now needed more than ever. This is how Novaplex is positioning itself on the consolidation curve — “restoring choice to the market” a key part of its value proposition.

Adding flexibility to the field

“One of our key objectives is to restore choice to some areas of the market where it’s currently very limited,” says Mitchell. He believes that there’s a misconception among some law firms and vendors that certain technologies have now been effectively commoditised — so don’t require more innovation.

He counters that some core technologies firms have been using for a very long time are in fact ripe for a shake-up. Novaplex seeks to differentiate its offerings from other relatively static products in the market, he says, by driving innovation in two of these key areas — document templating and restyling — through its Template Studio Suite.

And ensuring that these core technologies are well grounded and compatible with modern platforms is key to law firms making the most of digital transformation. “It’s not rocket science. We’re simply looking to deliver high-quality solutions with advanced features, reinforced with high-quality services and support, in a space where some larger vendors appear to have lost touch with their clients’ priorities,” he says. “That boils down to delivering good value for money.”

Kicking the tyres

While encouraging law firms to take a fresh look at the market and explore alternative solutions, Mitchell notes that firms often don’t pay enough attention to evaluating the quality of support that comes with a product before buying.

“You’ll learn a lot about the vendor by raising a support ticket or case. You can gauge responsiveness and the responder’s knowledge. Where are they located? Do they speak your language? These things can be immensely important when there’s an issue that needs to be resolved quickly.” Similarly, the quality of implementation services — whether directly from the vendor, accredited partner or training organisations — “can make or break your project”.

As important, he adds, is assessing the solution for “genuine innovation” — such as the number and nature of updates delivered (not just announced) in the past year or two. “Vendors will update their solutions to be compatible with the latest version of Windows, a document management system, and so on. But that’s just keeping things running. What new functionality have they introduced? What have they added that’s truly new and of value?”

At Novaplex, these considerations aren’t taken for granted — and its commitment to continuous improvement and innovation unlocks value for legal tech, he concludes.