Contents

Top Brands

1995

TfB Axxia AIM

Avenue Linetime

IPS Norwel Videss

DPS ICSA

Everybody knows the names

- but how do their competitive strategies play out?

The Market’s tough – just not That

tough…

The Big Answers:

Competitive Dynamics Checklist 1. Market Size (volume and value) 2. Segment Performance (cf total UK legal IT) 3. Growth Rates: Demand and Supply 4. Leading players by share 5. Industry consolidation (fiscal Map overall) 6. Returns and investment intensity

7. Industry performance: (ops/value chain) 8. New Entrants 9. Substitutes 10. Buyer power

Competitive Dynamics Checklist 11. Supplier power: barriers to entry 12. Intensity of rivalry

13.Complementors 14.Positional axes 15.Competitor clusters 16.Core services 17.Reactiveness 18.Change drivers: trigger/

experimentation/convergence

19.Life-Cycle stage: introduction/ growth/maturity/decline 20 Critical Resources

But not all lawyers are the

same…

Which ones are driving growth?

Which ones are spending more?

Which systems are enablers

and which are peripheral?

Value Chains: Competitive Axes (1)

You can agree or disagree with the Axes definitions – we’ve identified

27 of them here.

But these are the issues everyone picks to argue in front of clients and

prospects with.

There is no right or wrong here – some will deliver only for you

– or them.

Some over-engineer them. Some use them as red herrings.

Know what they are

and get better at the game…

Market Map: Today

What’s going wrong down here?

Peppermint is the strongest new challenge currently– but do you know

these guys too?.

Find out who’s who and who’s actually in a

position to lead…

What Next? The prospects?

Good: The mid-market legal IT sector is a great place to be for the enterprising and focused entrepreneur.

New Projects? What does betting the shop entail? What time and cost parameters are there in this market for major projects?

Everybody forces their ideas, plans and pet projects into a budget or 3 year plan spreadsheet – but what is reality?

A full Due Diligence

Profile for Advanced

Legal

40+ Dashboards Summarise

Every Supplier’s Market Share Core Financials Market Position

Competitors Shareholdings.

The definitive ‘One-Page’ Summary.

Real Market

Intelligence from Experts

With Insight and Experience

Them Nett New Sales You

Thomson Reuters

Advanced Legal

Eclipse

Them Profitability Y o u

Thomson Reuters

Advanced Legal

Eclipse

Them Sales per Employee Y o u

Thomson Reuters

Advanced Legal

Eclipse

Them Average Employee Cost Y o u

Thomson Reuters

Advanced Legal

Eclipse

Them Payroll as % Sales Y o u

Thomson Reuters

Advanced Legal

Eclipse

Them Deferred income Y o u

Thomson Reuters

Advanced Legal

Eclipse

No Need To Guess Ready Fire Aim?

£k

%

Appendix: Research Method

RBP research is focused on what economists call the Supply-Side research. We do not presume to know what lawyers or others will spend their money on next. We have asked them many times, and we have found that what they say and what they do are entirely different things. So the purpose of this research is to (a) identify all those in or seeking to carve a position within often frankly very blurry and fluid B2B markets; and (b) to see how the suppliers segment themselves and what they use to claim differentiation in the eyes of clients and prospects; and then (c) we dig deep into the numbers from Companies House, etc to see how it all stacks up financially.

We use benchmarks from very close competitors to estimate the performance of those firms who report only abbreviated balance sheets as well as the judgement of experts in the field to assess the most probable performance levels for those who hide the data. We prioritise small firms (especially sub £5m in sales and even sub £1m) and we actively seek out all new entrants, be they start-ups or new divisions from neighbouring companies. We are continually frustrated at the inability to quantify or predict when in-house enterprises from commerce or the public sector will break away or be ‘privatised’ but we monitor all such eventualities. We know it is not perfect; we also know it is better than anyone else’s guesses out there currently. We do not make assumptions about the size of the market based on extrapolations from a few listed company analysts estimates, and we do estimate divisional performance for firms which hide it (or more typically simply don’t report it in that way). We apply where possible the latest findings and disciplines from strategic and economic research (where they have stood the test of time).

We take a longer than 3 business cycles approach to estimating future performance. We study balance sheet data; track business model and investment preferences – in effect we track every corporate finance event of any significance, but we also overlay it with the experience of line directors and experts from the market. Relying on 3 year snapshots or project projections for 3-5 years when clearly the market is actually operating in 5-8 year cycles is key; we deliberately seek to see beyond the manager’s lifecycle to the market one – hence the 1995-2020 approach.

We do not publish confidential data. Everything here is available from the public domain and this serves an important function. There is no perfect market for information yet, here or elsewhere. But it is important to see how others see both you and your market. This is what bankers, investors, creditors, rivals, competitors and colleagues see when they did deep for long enough. We try to find ways of summarising a company or division’s character strategically. These are the essential building blocks of business and then corporate strategy.

• We started doing this when we needed market data for our own business planning purposes, then for regulatory negotiations at OFT and EU Competition Commission levels, then to back numerous acquisition and divestment decisions, and finally to ensure that as a non-executive (NED) we could ensure the ‘big picture’ could be summarised for those not necessarily familiar with the nuances of the market.

• The research has been used in most M&A deals in the market over the past two decades. It has been tested in the fire of EU Competition Commission negotiations, divestment and acquisition projects.

• We do not pretend to have a future in sight; we do not believe in the ‘end of’ anything, especially here. We are not futurists or thought leaders. We simply provide a still small voice which more often than not says: ‘but the numbers are actually doing this’. We like to think people don’t need to reinvent the wheel all the time; but we also like to think that when you understand Game Theory, Behavioural Economics, Strategic Competitive Dynamics, Military Strategy and frankly any other discipline that can help – the decisions you make will be of a better quality.

• The beauty of this approach is that it is not prescriptive. Every two people looking at this can and should come to different conclusions – every Board should argue it out and apply their particular energy and resources to their aim.

Then because life’s just too short – we throw in some visual stimuli to reinforce a point – or lighten the mood; we take the work very seriously – ourselves, not so much… Enjoy

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