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Managing Client Relationships The truth in professional services 2013

An annual survey from MPF and the Thriving Company,in association with the PM Forum

Managing Client Relationships – The truth in professional services 2013

Contents

1 Executive summary

2 About the participants

2 CRM activities undertaken by firms and

results gained

5 Usage of third parties

5 Are you keeping up with your peers?

7 Key areas of functionality and vendor

performance

8 Current performance and contribution of

CRM systems and vendors

9 The linkage of CRM with digital and social

technologies

10 Fee earner adoption of CRM tools

11 Other Issues

11 Getting the most out of vendors and

consultants

12 Additional insights

13 Square peg, round hole

15 Factsheets

17 Further information

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Managing Client Relationships – The truth in professional services 2013 1

Executive summaryThis is the fifth time that the ManagingPartners’ Forum (MPF) and The ThrivingCompany, in association with the PMForum, have surveyed CRM activitiesand results specific to professional firms.We’ve now got well over 1,000 contribu-tions from firms during the life of thisstudy. This represents the most robustset of data about CRM and managingclient relationships in professional firms.Our aim is that this forms a key resourceto those wishing to grow revenues, driveimproved effectiveness and gain thestrategic and financial benefits available.

This study also includes, for the firsttime, specific questions about usingdigital and social technologies forimproving knowledge and messaging,and the adoption of CRM tools by feeearners.

This report provides a summary of someof the significant issues underpinningCRM performance. More detailed insightand feedback is available on a variety ofaspects including more about the activi-ties that are associated with success,and on the perceived contribution ofspecific consultants, software andsystems. Details on how to access moreinsight can be found on the final page.

When reading this report, please bear inmind that while the adoption of tech-nology is a useful support toprogrammes to better manage clientrelationships, it is not the only buildingblock.

Key findings and observations• In general, the ability of professional

firms to gain strategic and financialbenefits from CRM activities seems tohave stalled since 2011.

• While a full 94% of firms report thatthey achieve at least some benefit,relatively few firms secure major,sustainable benefit across a range ofstrategic and financial outcomes.However, 14% (or 1 in 7) areachieving at least five of the ten keybenefits measured, to a major degree.They are accessing major perform-ance improvements. This suggests anopportunity is being missed by firmsand their consultants and vendors.

• Once again, the vast majority of firms(90%) expect to make investmentsthis year. Just over a third of the studyparticipants expect to changesystems in that time period. And justunder half expect to upgrade withinthe next three years. The questionimplied by the results of this study is“Is a change of system without astrategic plan to manage client rela-tionships a good investment of timeand money?”

• Overall system functionality is nolonger the most important factor whenthinking about the choice of supplier.It has been supplanted by specialistCRM expertise and understanding.

• We think there are opportunities formuch better performance. Satisfactionwith vendors and consultants is

generally low. Strategic programmemanagement disciplines (and keyactivities) are not in place for themajority of firms. This says to us thatconsultants and client firms need tothink more strategically.

• A key question for some firms andtheir consultants is “Is this an expen-sive/glorified spreadsheet with a littlebit of communications capability – oris the programme truly designed tohelp deliver value to clients and firms,help extend the relationships, andactually acquire clients – ie. does itgenerate substantial financial bene-fits?”

• Firms continue to face challenges inimproving user adoption across feeearners, and in exploiting synergiesbetween CRM and social technolo-gies.

• The reported performance of thirdparty systems/vendors remainsextremely variable. However, at theaggregate level, third party systemsand consultants receive much morepositive ratings than in-housebespoke systems.

• There are a number of specific waysin which peer professional servicesfirms have found that they can drivethe contribution from vendors andthird parties forward. Further observa-tions on what these results mean andthe implications for firms is included inthe summary and concludingcomments.


About theparticipants

There were 220 respondents in the

2013 study compared with 277 when

the survey was last run in late 2011.

The greatest number were from law

firms (57%) though other sectors

represented included accountancy

firms (15%), management consult-

ants (7%) consulting engineering

firms (4%), and marketing services

firms (4%). Responses from other

sectors accounted for the remaining

13%.

Fifteen percent of the participants

classified their firm as global, with

59% operating in the UK, and 21%

in North America. Other locations

accounted for the remaining 5%.

While marketing directors and

managers accounted for just over

half of the responses, 29% of partici-

pants were from ‘senior’ partners

and fee earners, incorporating senior

partners, managing partners, prac-

tice leaders and directors as well as

other senior fee earners. A further

13% of responses came from heads

of CRM and technology.

CRM activities undertaken byfirms and results gained

The 2013 study seems to suggest thatthe level of benefit attained by efforts tomanage client relationships has, ifanything, gone into decline.

We should not ignore the fact that everyspecified benefit is, at least to someextent, achieved by the majority of therespondents. However, only one benefit– better relationships with key clients – isbeing achieved to a ‘major’ degree bymore than 30% of those engaged in‘CRM’.

Given the levels of investment of timeand money being made in CRMprogrammes, can both firms andvendors/consultants be happy with that?

Chart 1 (below) shows the distinctionbetween those firms securing majorbenefits and those achieving some.

Performance is still constrained by alack of focus by many on those keyactivities which are most correlatedwith gaining major benefits acrossthe firm from managing client rela-tionships.

Once again far fewer firms report majorimprovements in profitability orincreased cost savings than report betterrelationships with key clients. Not allfirms are securing the financial returnfrom their efforts and from those betterrelationships.


The results shown in the table rightsuggest that slightly more firms areundertaking some key activities, forexample identifying client expectations.However, the impact of these efforts isnot flowing through to a real impact inaligning CRM strategy with the firm’sbusiness objectives, real integration ofmanagement information or a robustapproach to tracking success via keymetrics.

The table summarises the proportion offirms in this year’s study undertakingthose key activities. Where there is anoticeable difference from the 2011study this is highlighted – all percent-ages reflect participants who said they‘completely’ or ‘largely’ undertook theactivity. Percentages in blue show anynoticeable changes from the last study.

‘Gap closers’

Results of client surveys areconsistently tracked 39%(+5%)

Critical expectations impacthow the firm defines clientservice 37%

We identify client expectationsthrough robust client research33% (+6%)

Client service training is directlyinformed by known clientexpectations 33%

Expectations for client servicedelivery are clearly describedand measured for all staff withclient contact 33%

Marketing and HR/Trainingwork together to define trainingon client delivery, relationshipand service issues 28%

Those staff without direct clientcontact are measured on thecontribution they provide toclient contact activities… 20%(+4%)

‘Programme drivers’

The CRM database shows a definedmember of staff with overall accountabilityfor each client relationship 47%

The CRM strategy is integrated and alignedwith the firm's overall business objectives35% (-7%)

A clear CRM vision, supported by seniormanagement, has been defined with clearbenefits for the business 34%

Key sales, relationship management andmarketing processes have been designed33%

System users are included in ongoingrequirements gathering 27%

A clear process is in place to identify, priori-tise and implement system changes 23%

Key business managers and sponsors havedefined the reports and management infor-mation they need 23% (-7%)

Key success metrics of CRM programmeare well defined and regularly tracked22% (-4%)

Robust feedback is gained from heads offunctions and other key users of the CRMsystem 22% (-4%)

Specific performance standards are trackedfor the CRM system 19%

Proportion of firms undertaking key activities‘completely/to a large extent’


The annual FT/MPF Study into effective client adviser relationships suggests that this lack of management focus on suchkey activities may be misplaced. In fact clients indicated that management at their main adviser was not giving sufficientpriority to either formal measurement of client satisfaction or investment in technology and systems.


As we have seen throughout this bench-mark, while the adoption of technology isa useful support to programmes to bettermanage client relationships, it is not theonly key building block.

We will return to this point.

The chart to the right shows that the vastmajority of participants (90%) used CRMsoftware and technology, though there isa small but significant group which havedeveloped in-house systems.

So, what are the investments likely to bemade in this area by peers?

Are youkeeping upwith yourpeers?There is no doubt that most participantsdo not expect their efforts, or use ofsystems to stand still.

Nine out of ten firms expect to investin their CRM systems and processesthis year. However, 53% of participantssaid they will invest less than 0.5%, andonly 13% are planning to invest morethan 1% of their revenues.

Compared to 2011, this seems to

Usage of third parties


suggest cash investment in CRM isslightly declining.

Are some firms recognising that theyhave an opportunity to make betteruse of what they have?

As mentioned elsewhere in thissummary, more consistent programmemanagement and activity could beexpected to increase the ROI for manyfirms.

• 35% believe they are likely to moveto a new system within the next threeyears. This is little changed from 2011

• 47% will probably invest inupgrading their current system withinthe next three years. Some 23% saythey are more than 75% likely to doso.


Participants defined the importance ofdifferent areas of functionality based tooverall CRM capability.

Overall, six areas were viewed as‘mission-critical’ or ‘extremely valuable’by over 70% of participants. The area(just) seen as most important wassegmentation and targeting. Other areaswere also seen as key. For example,44% (up from 39% in 2011) describeddata quality management as missioncritical.

The least important area of functionalitywas integration with social media.However this is the area which hasshown the greatest relative increase inperceived importance. Some 32% (201122%) saw this as either extremely valu-able or mission critical. This suggests itis an area of focus for ‘early adopter’firms. More detail about professionalservices firms’ efforts in this area isprovided on page 13.

The study also sheds new light on how

firms view the importance of differentaspects when choosing between CRMsystems and vendors, and evaluatingtheir ongoing performance across bothsales and ongoing client serviceperformance.

Ease of customisation to specific needscontinues to be (by some distance) theleast important factor when choosing asystem or vendor. In contrast, and in achange from 2011, specialist CRMexpertise and understanding rather thanthe overall system functionality wasconsidered the most important of thoselisted (see table below).

When ongoing performance is evalu-ated, the ability of the vendor orconsultant to understand client needswas, in overall terms, considered themost important. However, when ‘markedout of 10’ the average perceivedperformance of consultants and vendorson this factor was only 5.04.

Key areas of functionality andvendor performance

Impact on CRM Choosing between Ongoingcapability systems/vendors performance of vendor

Most important Segmentation and Specialist CRM Understanding targeting expertise and understanding client needs

Least important Integration with Ease of customisation Provision of updates social media


So, how do vendors and systemscurrently perform, and what contributiondo they make?

Overall satisfaction is in fact lower thanwe found in 2011, and is now at 5.50(from 5.84 in the previous study). It isalso noticeable that the average satis-faction of those using in-house efforts issubstantially lower than this, at 3.80.

Just 8% of participants answering thisquestion said they would rate theiroverall satisfaction with their supplier orconsultant with a 9 or 10 out of 10. Thisfeels ironic given the promised impact ofthese systems and vendors on end clientsatisfaction. A case of “physician healthyself”?

We have analysed the overall perform-ance of each vendor/advisor achievingsufficient responses to be included inthis summary. The overall rating, out of100, is derived from their ratings on eachindividual area of performance, andweighted by the overall importance tofirms of each area (see table right).

Generally, CRM systems and vendorsseem to have an impact on the attain-ment of some key business outcomes.Taking these benefits in aggregate, in72% of cases participants reported thatthe vendor/consultant had made a posi-tive contribution.

The most effective contributions appearto have been made in the areas ofincreased ability to cross-sell, improved

Ranking Vendor/Advisor Performance Performance rating (out of 100) rating (2011)

1 Conscious Solutions 78.9 Not available

2 Microsoft Dynamics 59.8 52.8

3 Collier Pickard 58.1 53.8

4 Lexis Nexis 56.4 62.3

5 Thomson/Hubbard One 50.8 52.6

6 Composite – all others 46.8 48.6

7 Bespoke in-house 34.6 53.4

Current performance and contributionof CRM systems and vendors

collaboration between employees andbetter efficiency when serving clients.

However, another key part of the find-ings is that there are few occasions

where the consultant or vendor isperceived as making an outstandingcontribution. In only 12% of cases wasthe contribution of their vendor rated as8 (or above) out of a possible score of

10 for all of thevarious contributionsincluded in the study.This is a reductionsince 2011 when thefigure was close to20%.

A comparison of feed-back on performanceand contribution bysystem/vendor isshown in figure 1. Thissuggests there ismore that can be doneby vendors and advi-sors – and probablyalso by clients – tobring about improvedperformance.

Figure 1: Overall performance and contribution


The benchmark study reviewed theseareas for the first time in 2013.

While over a third of participants saidthat CRM systems and email marketingsystems were closely coupled, this samedegree of alignment is rarer for CRMand digital and social technologies.

Research from other surveys indicatesthat social media can be a useful source

of knowledge but only if it is properlycurated.

Social media is still in its infancy inprofessional firms. We suspect that it willbecome much clearer over the next yearwhether corporate messaging throughsocial media is seen by most clients asmaking a valuable contribution, and/oradds something meaningful to theclient/advisor relationship – or not…

The linkage of CRM with digitaland social technologies


It is striking that in around half of firms,many staff have been shown how to usethe CRM tools implemented within thefirm but do not view them as relevant.The number of firms where the CRMsystem is regarded as used by BD andmarketing staff rather than fee earners issimilar.

This is where the significance of change

management and CRM strategy isperhaps so crucial. It is not a ‘tech-nology’ issue in the main. Some 83% (orfive in six) fee earners are, at least tosome extent, protecting and ‘ringfencing’ their relationships from – poten-tially positive – engagement bycolleagues. Alan Joenn looks at this inmore detail on page 13.

Fee earner adoption of CRM tools


Four ‘macro’ areas stand out as drivingresults from more detailed research intothose firms that have previously reportedmajor benefits:• Gaining robust and objective under-

standing of what clients need andvalue

• Having a clear CRM vision• Effective programme management• A system of measurement that works

Gaining the most out of vendorsand consultants The clear lesson from the 2013 bench-mark is that the ability to generatesustainable and substantial benefit andROI from efforts to manage client rela-tionships, and CRM programmes,depends on:• Dealing with CRM as a strategic

programme, and understanding thecultural, strategic, behavioural andprogramme management efforts of this

• Getting the best from third partyvendors and consultants.

So what is the advice from firms on howto gain the most from vendors andconsultants?

Be clear about the business objectivesThis is a clear message and a keyresponsibility of the firm and thoseinvolved in the project. Remarksincluded:

“Be clear about the business objectives

and not allow the technology to drive thestrategy”

“No external CRM specialist, whetherthey are technical (ie. systems) orcultural (ie. change management) canperform their role well unless their clienthas a clearly defined CRM strategy thatis aligned to their business strategy”

Firm management input This issue seems fairly stronglyconnected to the one above:

“From my experience it is important thatwe have the highest level of internalsupport from firm management”

“The business needs to own and developCRM and have very proactive leadershipto produce long term benefits”

Ongoing communication Those achieving success in firms haveclearly learned lessons in this area:

“At least meeting quarterly to update onkey business objectives/strategy as wellas developments from vendor side”

“Ensuring they have a thorough under-standing of corporate goals for thesystem while also understanding theobstacles that exist in achieving them”

Don’t rush it/ensure you think holisti-cally about what you need.“Allow them sufficient time to conducttheir business analysis – don't rush theprocess”

Other issues

And another was clear about one way ofimproving adoption and makingprocesses stick:

“Excellent documentation which can beeasily adapted internally”

Finally, some have expressed problemsthat have resulted from perhaps notlooking sufficiently holistically in the past:

“Currently have a failed CRM. It does notintegrate with our practice managementsoftware and is not seamless with firmcommunication vehicles. (The best)contribution would be developing seam-less program as well as training support”

Effective supplier management andchoosingThis was expressed as key by severalparticipants. On some occasions itappeared to be a reflection of what doesnot occur in some cases, as well as anexpression of how to drive value:

“A relationship, A TRUSTED ONE”

“That they listen to what we are trying toachieve rather than sell a one size fits allsolution”

“Their grasp of what our business isreally about and how we serve clientsand potential clients”

More of the participant’s insight on howto gain more value from vendors andconsultants is available on request.


This summary by its nature overviewsthe top level findings of the 2013Managing Client Relationships – TheTruth in Professional services bench-mark study.

Further insights are available that canhelp firms aiming to achieve a greaterreturn from CRM, considering changingadvisors or systems or aiming to achieveenhanced results and ROI from currentefforts .

A more detailed standard report is avail-able which includes deeper reportingand analysis of the important attributesin selecting and retaining vendors, andthe performance of named vendors.Areas covered include:

1 Does management of client rela-tionships impact financial andstrategic performance?

• Type and level of benefits firms report• What drives the difference – activities

and the extent to which they areundertaken

• The activities with the highest correla-tion with benefits

• Gaining success – the implications

2 The role of systems • CRM investments being made• Ranking of different areas of CRM

functionality by importance• What peer firms look for when

choosing vendors – the full ranking ofaspects of performance

• How to monitor vendor and systemperformance

Improving the contribution andresults from vendors andadvisors

This study has identified that there areopportunities for vendors and advisors toimprove the satisfaction of their profes-sional firm clients and to improve thevalue and contribution that they provide.Indeed, some participants providedfeedback which they said they would liketheir vendors and advisors to receive. Aspart of the shared commitment by MPF,PM Forum and The Thriving Company tofacilitate improved outcomes for profes-sional firms, vendors can access moredetailed feedback on their performance,suggested improvements and how theyare seen by current clients and profes-sional firms generally.

Additional insight

3 Choosing systems and vendors • In-house or externally built?• Knowledge and perceptions of

vendors and consultants• How clients feel about vendors,

including net promoter score data • How satisfied are client firms?• The contribution made by vendors

and bespoke in-house efforts• “WhatVendor?” – scores of each

vendor on each area of performanceand perceived contribution)

4 Gaining the most value from therelationship with a vendor

• What to emphasise – how to drive thegreatest contribution from vendors

We are also happy to respond to anyrequests for specific insight from thestudy relevant to a firm’s specific situa-tion. Examples may be analyses basedon individual sectors, geographies, sizesof firms, or vendors/consultants, wherethe data allows this. Please contact Paulor Robin – contact details on the finalpage.

About the report’s authorRobin Dicks is the founder director of The Thriving Company, a consultancy whichhelps professional services firms improve performance.He has 25 years experience in Professional and Financial services and his mainfocus is enabling firms to improve their strategies and increase revenue and prof-itability. His expertise includes helping firms secure more opportunities with theirclients, undertaking high quality, cost-effective client research projects, training onclient management and client service issues, and helping firms with best in classaccount management, and strategic targeting approaches. He also helps firmsdevelop successful marketing strategies, plans and the ability to execute marketingmore effectively.


New opportunitiesEstablished methods of working appearto be entrenched – but the world offersmore new opportunities than everbefore. So how can professionals adaptestablished best practices and makethem work effectively in a way whichexploits these new opportunities?

To answer this, you first need to take alook at the detailed report statistics.

Majority opinion is commensurate withthe stated goals of most firms: clientsatisfaction, cross-selling and clientacquisition are vital., However we needto consider the way businesses havechanged over recent years. Of course,technology has changed the way peoplecommunicate in business – the shift toelectronic and digital is all consuming.Professional services firms haveembraced this shift. But are the opportu-nities presented by these new technolo-gies being exploited to their fullpotential?

Better targetingSecondly, let’s look at the way peopleuse these digital technologies today withan example:

A target client of yours receives anemail invitation to a seminar you arerunning next month. One of the links inyour email is clicked, the detail of theseminar reviewed, but not the speakerlink. Simple. A follow up email can besent and a seat reserved. Now thisperson probably has a profile onLinkedIn which highlights professionalinterests and lists the shared interestgroups joined. The fact that your link wasclicked shows an area of interest on thepart of the target client; the LinkedInprofile tells you more. How much of thisinformation do you capture and use toimprove segmentation and targeting inyour next email shot or your nexttargeted newsletter? All of it, some of it,or none? The survey indicates the latter.Only one fifth (20%) of respondents say

that information gained from emailmarketing is used to a large degree tomore deeply understand client relation-ships. Even less (15%) use social mediasites to increase knowledge of clients ortargets.

Who owns the client?Thirdly, let’s look at the establishedmethod of working within professionalfirms. Your fee earners may feel they“own” the client relationship. They dealwith the client face to face, they under-stand more about the client and clientpreferences than anyone else in the firm.This information may represent a part oftheir ‘value’ to the firm. So this segmen-tation and targeting detail is sharedgrudgingly with the marketing and busi-ness development team. – the very teamcharged with improving client satisfac-tion, identifying cross-selling opportuni-ties and increasing the effectiveness ofclient acquisition activity. A team

Square peg, round hole

Client satisfaction. Cross-selling. Client acquisition. Mostof the professional firms Alan Joenn, of Collier Pickard,talk to these days have one or more of these terms at thetop of the list. Protecting the firm and its client base is keyto survival. But are firms giving themselves the best shotat achieving their goals? Are they making use of availabletools which could help? The answer to these questions –based on the results of this year’s managing clientrelationships survey – is “not yet”.


thwarted by tactical thinking by feeearners. Indeed, the survey results showthat six in seven of all fee earners ringfence their client relationships andprotect them from other influences!Furthermore, nearly half indicated thatthey regard a client relationship manage-ment tool – the repository of sharedclient information – as not relevant tothem. It’s purely for the business devel-opment and marketing team.

So the stated goal of cross-selling andreducing client attrition appears to beactively hampered within half the firmstaking part in the survey. This sentimentis reflected in that half of the peoplesurveyed (49%) who have been shownhow to use the CRM system in play atthe firm do not view it as relevant totheir professional life.

Here is an example: An interna-tional lawyer recently told me that heprepares for business trips abroadby reviewing his personal list ofcontacts, held in a Word document,and the high level notes he main-tains against each name. Notes willinclude items such as “Meet forlunch next time in New York to devel-opment off-shore opportunities”. Heupdates these notes during his trips,adding new contacts to the list asappropriate. Once every few months heallows the list to be reviewed so that acentral database can be updated. Thislawyer is a successful practitioner,working well in his specialist field. Buthow is the rest of the firm supposed tohelp him? How are colleagues expectedto identify cross-selling opportunities?How can referrals be tracked and quanti-fied? How can the marketing and busi-ness development people help by

targeting only relevant material to hiscontacts in an effort to increase clientsatisfaction? The stated goal and themethod of working are incongruous.

Where are you on the adoptioncurve?In response to the question coveringmission critical and extremely valuableactivities, one third of respondents (32%)identify integration with social media asimportant. Whilst 32% is a minority, itrepresents a significant increase overthe previous survey where only 22%indicated that social media was on theradar. To interpret these results we needto look at the adoption of new tech-nology and new practices in business:

The early adopters of social media arechanging the way they identify clientpreferences, changing the tools used forsegmentation and targeting (identified asmission critical or extremely valuable by81% of respondents) and thereforechanging the way they address clientsatisfaction and win business. A neworder is emerging in best practice forbusiness development, cross-selling andclient satisfaction. And as things change

the late majority and the laggards maywell be the losers.

ConclusionWe believe that advances in digital tech-nology and CRM tools are there to beexploited to the benefit of professionalfirms. But unless they ask themselveswhy they do things the way they do andbreak out of old cultural habits, thenpositive change won’t happen. Thesetechnologies are there to improve estab-lished methods of working and bestpractice, not replace them.

In the world of CRM and digitalcommunication tools the professionalsstill ‘own’ the client but other importantmembers of the team get to share the

client detail. They also get thechance to augment it with additionalsnippets harvested from emailmarketing feedback and socialmedia – snippets which helptargeting and relationship manage-ment, which in turn fuel improve-ments in client satisfaction andreduce attrition rates

If protecting your position in thedifficult market conditions of todayis the game plan for professionals,then being part of the early majorityto embrace new technology to

support and enhance the ways in whichyou work is vital.

Alan Joenn is the marketing directorat Collier Pickard. He has over 35years’ experience in business automa-tion, office automation and personalproductivity within the IT sector andthe commercial arena. He has spentthe past 16 years working in CRM,including operational CRM solutionsand BI-based analytical CRM.


Collier Pickard Ltd.Contact:Alan JoennMarketing [email protected] The Old Calf HouseChevening RoadSundridgeKentTN14 6AB

+44 (0)7775 600866 direct+44 (0)1959 560410 switchboard+44 (0)1959 569364 fax

Alan JoennAlan Joenn is the marketing director at Collier Pickard. He has over 35 years’ experience in business automation, office automa-tion and personal productivity within the IT sector and the commercial arena. He has spent the past 16 years working in CRM,including operational CRM solutions and BI-based analytical CRM.

Description of CompanyCollier Pickard is an independent CRM consultancy specialising in the best CRM and BI solutions for the mid-market environ-ment and for divisions of global corporations. We work with commercial, professional services, financial services, not-for-profitand government organisations.

Our team of CRM experts, solutions architects, technical consultants and project managers has worked together for 20 years.We have implemented over 400 CRM solutions. When we started the term CRM did not exist. In the early 1990s an appetite for‘contact management’ developed and our expertise grew from this point. Having said this, we have experience of large scalebusiness automation and IT in sales, marketing and customer service – so our evolution from small-scale contact managementto large-scale and global CRM projects has a solid foundation in relevant and successful practices. The methodologies we useare based on this foundation and on a deep understanding of what works and what doesn’t in CRM.

We approach all our engagements seeing our clients as our partners. On this basis we select the most appropriate technologyto deliver a single, coherent platform on which to manage change smoothly and positively.

Our implementation approach is as much about understanding an organisation’s culture and business strategy and how best tointroduce change as it is about implementing systems to deliver effective technology for change.

Fact sheets


The Thriving Company Limited Contact:Robin DicksDirectorThe Thriving Company [email protected] Gurney Court RoadSt AlbansHertfordshireAL1 4RJ

+44 (0)7940 886677 direct

Robin DicksRobin is the founder director of The Thriving Company, a consultancy which helps professional services firms improve perform-ance. He has 25 years experience in professional and financial services and his main focus is enabling firms to improve theirstrategies and increase revenue and profitability

Description of CompanyThriving is a specialist, responsive company which helps firms improve their marketing, business development and client satis-faction - and hence financial performance. We help firms more successfully understand and deliver what clients value, and helpthem use their resources and skills more productively to satisfy client and market needs at a profit.

We aim to always deliver value for money. We guarantee that we will generate results.

We focus on helping professional, financial and other B2B businesses from sectors such as legal, insurance, intellectual prop-erty, accountancy, consulting, property management and private equity.

Our particular expertise has been drawn from many years of in-house experience in such businesses, in addition to ourconsulting experience. Services we provide include client research, market research, crm consultancy, strategic marketing, fee-earner training, online surveys, mystery shopping, benchmarking, and client acquisition and development.

So far, every client we have worked for has said that we have at least met expectations, and more typically, we have exceededthem.

Contact us if you’re interested in driving improved financial performance, the ability to extend client relationships, better acquireclient relationships, or gain a greater return from marketing and CRM activity.


Members of The Managing Partners' Forum (www.mpfglobal.com) balance fourroles: board member, leader, client confidant and head of a management team. MPFhas supported and represented its members in each of those roles since 1995. Ourcapabilities include: gatekeepers to decision takers worldwide; a track record ofcreating sustainable membership communities; powerful people and topic selectionskills, effective lobbying to government and other audiences; and constantly scanningthe horizon for insights, tools and frameworks that could be of value to our members.

The Thriving Company Limited (www.thrivingcompany.co.uk) specialises in helpingprofessional services firms improve their marketing, business development, andoverall business performance. We operate across professional and financial servicesso that clients can benefit from the best of practices across all sectors. We are expertin strategic marketing, CRM, client and market research and business developmentand help firms drive profitability through understanding and performing well on thoseaspects that drive it. It is the core of what we do. We help marketers and firmsimprove ROI.

Professional Marketing Forum (www.pmforumglobal.com) is a 4,000 strong region-ally-based professional body. Our aim is to help our members and their firms be moreeffective, competitive and profitable. We are gatekeepers to leading marketers world-wide. Our member services include: knowledge sharing through educational seminarsand conferences, a world-class magazine (Professional Marketing), an online articlebank, and surveys into trends and developments; an ‘ask-an-expert’ service; a collab-orative hub and LinkedIn groups; and lobbying key audiences on behalf of members.

Contact:Paul Lemon, Commercial Director, Managing Partners’ Forum, +44 (0)20 7786 9786,[email protected] Dicks, Managing Director, The Thriving Company Limited, +44 (0)7940 886677,[email protected]

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