Camerons outsources all support services in £600m deal
CMS Cameron McKenna has become the first firm to outsource its entire business support function after agreeing a £600m deal with Integreon.
Duncan Weston
The game-changing agreement will see the top 20 firm sublet a floor of its City HQ to Integreon and transfer as many as 200 support staff into the newly created service centre.
Director of operations Tony Wright, who has been leading the deal, will be seconded to Integreon from the start of June while the two parties undertake a three-month due diligence process.
Camerons plans to roll the model out across the full CMS network with all nine European firms expected to sign up within three to four years, according to managing partner Duncan Weston. The service will subsequently be made available to other law firms.
Outsourced functions will include IT, HR, finance, business development, communications, knowledge management, facilities management and administration services.
Weston said: “It’s one of the core pillars of our strategy. We hope that this is something that transforms the sector.
“The difference with this is that we’re the first firm to market a complete service platform for the industry.”
The partnership will see Camerons help Integreon develop its new service, although the firm will not put any equity into the project.
Wright added: “With the investment that comes from focusing on that as a core business we get a service that’s better than any back office law firm can deliver themselves.”
Last year, Osborne Clarke signed a similar agreement with Integreon that saw 75 back office staff move to the outsourcer, but the Camerons partnership is thought to be around ten times the size.
Integreon’s president of global sales John Croft said: “We’ve been building up to this moment for 10 years. One of the things we’ve found is that few law firms want to be the first to do things, but the way they’re structured we felt that change like this was inevitable.”
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Readers' comments (59)
marjorie | 14-May-2010 11:46 am
How much money is Camerons going to make out of this if Integreon is going to be using its staff to do work for other firms?
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Claire | 14-May-2010 12:29 pm
My sympathies to the poor staff who will be caught up in this noxious experiment.
It will be interesting to see if the process works, but whilst retaining the outsourced staff in the same building, one has to question why? I certainly would not trust recruitment of my staff to someone else, nor want my daily affairs dealt with by technically, a permanent "temp".
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John Flood | 14-May-2010 12:37 pm
This is similar to Orrick's outsourcing operation in the US which was to have sold services to other firms. I don't think any other firm ever signed up.
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Anonymous | 14-May-2010 12:47 pm
All support functions? This reveals how much Camerons see support as a commoditised service. Yes, some areas can be outsourced but how will they ensure strategic alignment in areas such as business development?
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Anonymous | 14-May-2010 12:54 pm
If firm's sign up to business development being outsourced to one firm, how does one differentiate on USPs? Confidentiality is hard to monitor at the best of times, but how it works when the same team works for a number of firms having access to highly confidential information across a number of areas (and not just recruitment unlike the headhunters who, lets face it, are not entirely discrete themselves) should be interesting to watch.
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Anonymous | 14-May-2010 1:24 pm
If your name is Cameron, in this day and age, then I guess you have to power share!
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Anonymous | 14-May-2010 2:13 pm
Am I alone in thinking that Camerons have been conned by some very slick salesmen?
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Anonymous | 14-May-2010 2:23 pm
Cost-cutting by any other name would still smell as fetid. Let's hope this isn't just yet another way for a big firm to hide the fact that it needs to make redundancies.
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Anonymous | 14-May-2010 2:41 pm
Oh for the day when support staff are respected as integral team members rather than disposable and interchangeable whenever corners have to be cut.
It's hard to see how this idea can offer a "service that’s better than any back office law firm", not only from the aspects of the lack of confidentiality, effiency, knowledge, etc but also those antiquated ideas of morale and motivation. Who wants to feel like a small cog in a big machine?
I would dearly love for partners like Duncan Weston to spend a day working as an unappreciated secretary or in accounts. I suspect it would be eye-opening.
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Anonymous | 14-May-2010 2:48 pm
Up next, the Secretaries. Then, Boris Weston will finally have to figure out how to grow a business through means other than cost cutting. Two years of it and profits are still plummeting.
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