Thomson Reuters holds London briefing on Elite progress

17
Jul
2017

Jonathan Watson

Thomson Reuters Elite held a briefing in London recently to provide updates on the Elite Enterprise Business Management Solution, which consists, at its core, of 3E for financial management, MatterSphere for client and matter management, and Business Development Premier (BDP) for business development and CRM.

The session updated a sector-experienced and influential audience on the Elite cloud strategy, on investment in the lawyer-as-a-user experience, on core product roadmaps and on progress in selling the solutions to a wide variety of firms.

Pre-sales consultant Graham Mills provided a demo showing how lawyers can use Amazon’s artificially intelligent virtual assistant, Alexa, to keep track of their billable hours through the new Workspace Assistant offered by Elite. Workspace Assistant, part of the Workspace business management tool, can calculate time spent on specific matters while allowing users to input their own hours. Workspace Assistant, which is compatible with any Alexa-enabled device, including Amazon Echo, can also answer questions relating to billable hours.

‘We want lawyers to live in a user-friendly environment and achieve all their goals within that,’ said Peter Gill, head of sales for the EMEA region. ‘Workspace with Elite Data Insights, for example, building on Microsoft Power BI technology, will provide users with information from multiple sources at their fingertips to better serve their clients. It will also provide business information to be disseminated to the users to allow better business decisions to be made in real time. Data insights just when you need them’.

Gill also used the briefing to outline the company’s approach to the cloud. Thomson Reuters is offering standard setups, deployed on Microsoft Azure and fully managed by Elite, including upgrades. New features include application insights, Elite Data Insights with Microsoft Power BI and Workspace integration. Cloud pilots will be initiated and conducted in the second half of 2017, including Business Development Premier and 3E. 

‘For 3E, the plan is to continue to offer the on-premise option while moving to the cloud,’ said Gill. ‘The company believes this will provide improved scalability, enhanced security, more data residency options, reduced implementation time and more opportunities for innovation,’ he added.

‘There have been 208 3E clients signed globally’, Gill said. ‘Of these, there are 34 projected go-lives this year, up from 21 in 2016. Thomson Reuters is also seeing more and more Enterprise clients moving to 3E—32% of all 3E deals had migrated from Enterprise in 2014, 40% in 2015 and 69% in 2016. Recent 3E wins include Mills & Reeve (this was the 200th global client for 3E), Thomson Snell & Passmore, Brabners (the 50th client in the EMEA region), and Barlow Robbins,’ he added.

‘There are now 52 3E deals signed in the EMEA region’, said Gill. ‘Three of these were in 2015, seven in 2016, and five in the first half of 2017. We’re in a healthy place.’

According to data from Thomson Reuters’ Peer Monitor benchmarking tool, law is a buyer’s market with rising client expectations. Firms are responding with a heightened focus on profitability and efficiency. ‘We are finding that technology levels the playing field, enabling smaller firms to compete with larger ones,’ said Gill. ‘Although relationships are important, the right legal solution at the right price is frequently winning out’.

Thomson Reuters Elite currently has over 4,200 customers in 42 countries, with 90% of the Global 100 owning at least one Elite product. In addition, 61% of these firms are using two or more products.