The global law firm DLA Piper Finland identified challenges in cross-selling as a key barrier to growth. The company’s experts sought improved visibility into client relationships and a tool to enhance transparency in managing these relationships.
Nina Lallukka, the Head of Business Development and Marketing at DLA Piper Finland, was tasked with finding a CRM system that not only provides a clear view of customer management but also ensures transparent information sharing between the company’s marketing and sales departments.
“Our shareholders identified cross-selling challenges as a barrier to business growth. Without a CRM system, it has been difficult for our experts to promote cross-selling, as there was no centralized overview of customer relationships,” Lallukka explains.
Aiming for transparency and better customer management
The primary goals of business development were to enable the partners at DLA Piper Finland to execute sales more effectively and efficiently, to deepen the understanding of clients, and to enhance marketing efforts. Additionally, the company aimed to provide its experts with the best possible technology for performing their work and recording activities.
“We weren’t just looking for a CRM system; our aim was to find a platform that would not only give us a CRM but also provide us with a customer listening program and a tool for marketing automation,” says Nina Lallukka.
Salesforce provided all the required tools on a single platform. There were other platforms considered, but ultimately Salesforce was chosen because it’s a familiar and trusted global brand. Salesforce’s strong data security practices also played a significant role in the decision. twoday Biit joined the project following a recommendation from Salesforce.
“Salesforce had a few preliminary discussions with us and suggested that twoday Biit would be a good partner for us for the implementation and configuration phases, that is, the entire platform implementation,” Lallukka explains.
DLA Piper offers services in all areas of business law and organizes its operations through its practices, or expertise groups. The company’s goal was to achieve more transparent information flow between its practices and its experts. For sales and growth, it is crucial that the experts can see the overall picture of the client relationship from one place.
Previously, the situation between different competency groups was challenging. Cross-selling couldn’t be effectively executed since past communications and activities weren’t visible to the entire organization. After the implementation project, visibility has improved and the volume of activities has started to increase.
Lallukka believes that the adoption of Salesforce has brought about positive changes in the daily life of the company, especially in terms of reporting and monitoring. Sales, proposals, and activities are now followed more closely, and information flows more smoothly within the organization.
DLA Piper now leverages Salesforce tools for sales and customer relationship management, along with the Marketing Cloud Account Engagement for marketing automation. Next up, customer satisfaction surveys will transition to Salesforce when the Surveys tool is rolled out.
The change in everyday work is already palpable, even though some of the results, such as sales figures, will only become apparent after a longer period of tracking.
“We’ve taken a step towards more professional sales and client management. Salesforce is now a part of our everyday life, and we monitor our experts’ activities at the report level. At the same time, we’re trying to find synergies in our work processes. We have been more active than last year up to this point,” Lallukka summarizes.
Lallukka is also pleased with how well the new, more open approach has been received in the traditional expert organization. The lawyers are using the platform, pointing out areas for improvement, and providing continuous feedback. Through feedback and open discussion, it’s becoming increasingly clear what the best way for DLA Piper to utilize Salesforce is.
“We have an awesome team at work. Some might think our industry is stiff, slow to change, and hierarchical, but we’ve embraced change positively. I’m incredibly proud of our crew.”
“The most crucial aspect for us is that Salesforce acts as a tool supporting cultural change. Our goal is to be more efficient in sales, to understand our customers better, to excel in marketing, and to become an even better workplace for our experts. Salesforce is the tool that helps us advance in all these four areas.”
Agile way of working has been impressive – collaboration with twoday Biit continues
Nina Lallukka describes how Biiti has significantly streamlined the Salesforce procurement process.
“The consultants at twoday Biit defined very quickly what we were purchasing and the level of licenses we needed. It helped us save a lot of work hours.”
Once the appropriate licenses had been acquired, twoday Biit defined clear modules with DLA Piper for the Salesforce implementation in the organization. These modules were developed in two-week sprints.
Programming always involves a testing phase, which was initially carried out with DLA Piper in bi-weekly demo sessions. However, due to the work schedules of DLA Piper’s experts, a regular, long demo requiring everyone’s presence was practically impossible to implement. Yet, Biit responded to the challenge with agility.
“We changed our approach on the fly, reserving quick sessions with twoday Biit’s project manager and extensively testing various elements with users.”
“We quickly realized that this was a better approach for us, as it allowed us to take the project’s communication right down to the grassroots level. The staff were able to get involved in the project from the development phase. By the time the implementation training started, many had already had the chance to test and provide feedback,” Lallukka explains.
DLA Piper was particularly pleased with how swiftly Biit was able to respond and develop a new way of working. Lallukka also praises Biit’s understanding of DLA Piper’s business and culture. Because of this understanding, the collaboration will continue in the future.
“twoday Biit has become part of our group. There’s nothing better than finding a partner who understands our business and with whom it’s easy to continue when there’s something to develop,” Lallukka concludes.