Camerons battles backlash from controversial outsourcing deal
CMS CAMERON McKenna has admitted that a number of elements of its business support function may be retained in-house after facing a barrage of criticism over its deal with outsourcing specialist Integreon.
Since the news of the £600m deal broke, The Lawyer’s online messageboard has been inundated with comments from Camerons’ staff criticising the tie-up.
Director of operations Tony Wright, who has been central to overseeing the agreement and will begin a secondment at Integreon next month, admitted that there has been some negative reaction among Camerons’ staff.
Wright said: “There’s been a mix [of reactions] and that’s understandable. It’s a change for the majority of people and that brings uncertainty.”
Wright added that some functions of the business may not move over to Integreon. “We still don’t know. It may be that some elements prove too strategic and it doesn’t make sense [to outsource them].
“It may be that some individuals are retained by the law firm - it’s never been the case that every element of the business support process would be transferred across,” continued Wright.
The firm has begun a series of meetings with staff at all levels. It has set up sub-committees of the staff forum to discuss the changes and has started publishing regular newsletter updates.
The deal will see a shared service centre set up at Camerons’ London HQ, with a capacity for up to 200 support staff. It will then be made available to other law firms in an agreement similar to that signed last year between Integreon and Osborne Clarke.
However, the Bristol firm has outsourced only around three quarters of its back office, with senior figures understood to be reluctant to move towards the full-service model.
Osborne Clarke managing partner Simon Beswick said: “We took an approach that was more conservative, partly because no one had done it before and so the risk was much greater.
“Also, we felt that some areas are less process-driven and we wanted to keep some areas in-house.”
Some commentators have questioned how Camerons will be able to guarantee confidentiality if functions such as knowledge management, communications and business development are outsourced.
One senior partner at a rival firm commented: “We certainly wouldn’t do it and I can’t imagine clients would be too happy about it either.”
Wright claimed that processes will be put in place to ensure confidentiality.
He said: “Some people would be dedicated only to CMS Cameron McKenna but would still be employed in the shared centre.”
The new centre is expected to go live in the autumn after a three-month due diligence process.
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Readers' comments (35)
Too Late | 24-May-2010 11:21 am
Too late, son. The CVs went out to recruiters last week.
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Confused | 24-May-2010 11:56 am
Maybe we could work for Cameorns on Mon, Wed and Fri and Integreon on Tues and Thurs. Problem solved! Lol loooool looooooooooooooool (wheeze) lol.
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Anonymous | 24-May-2010 12:01 pm
Duncan - are you going to take the hit for this one? Or are you going to throw Wright under the bus?
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Anonymous | 24-May-2010 12:21 pm
So the new business model seems to shaping up nicely:
1. Destroy morale
2. Back peddle furiously
3. Wipe egg of face
4. Er, aplogise?
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Anonymous | 24-May-2010 12:25 pm
The article suggests that they are only now consulting with staff; if this is true then what a mess!
Surely early consultation had to play a major part in this if it was to work?
Damage limitation at this point is too late, their reputation as a employer is in tatters!
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Anonymous | 24-May-2010 12:30 pm
Cameron's management team : toothless, worthless, spinelss, useless. But we knew that before all of this happened.
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Anonymous | 24-May-2010 12:59 pm
This is all so sad. I worked at Camerons from 2004 to 2007 before joining a larger firm. So many times I tell people that Camerons may have been smaller, but they were far better managed and treated their staff much, much better. It really was a great place to work. I trusted our management, we always heard things about the business, even if it was bad, and had as close a family situation as you could get in a law firm. Now it seems new management has wrecked it. What went so wrong? Profit used to be going up up up. Is there a correlation now with the new management of profits going down down down? Maybe it is a lesson in how to treat people and communicate with them tied to profits?
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Anonymous | 24-May-2010 1:05 pm
With no offence intended, the job market in London tends to be tight and you often pay over the odds for "less able" employees (basic supply and demand), as anybody remotely competent can find a better paid job at your competitors. London (and maybe the SE) is quite unique in this regard. The rest of the UK being quite the opposite. It seems quite reasonable for a firm to outsource this “balance of power” issue to an external firm – let the wage inflation be their problem.
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Operation Blame Tony | 24-May-2010 1:46 pm
I see that when it was a great initiaitive, Duncan's face is all over the article. Now the sh*t has started to hit the fan he's nowhere to be seen. Nice touch. Richard Price, looks like you're going to have to do more than 1 extra year as senior partner to sort this out. How you booked in 2012?
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Law. Tax. Lies. | 24-May-2010 2:04 pm
So firstly our redundancy policy was cut in half although ' no redunancies were planned'. Redundancies followed within 3 months then the flex salary reductions were made to secure the long-term futures of staff and the firm. And within 12 months half of those staff are up for transfer/redundancy. Can I propose that the Firm broadens it offer of services to:
Law.Tax. Lies.
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