Within the high-end strategic consulting services market, a business lawyer possessing extensive know-how in business economics, frequently upgrades to become a “trusted advisor” for an organization’s top management.
This means that his advice is not only sought for the management of individual cases, but on a ongoing basis and not exclusively for legal issues.
The trusted advisor must hold a deep knowledge of the business model of his client, provide high added value professional advice, experience, emotional intelligence and frankness, tailored to the specific risk tolerance of the client, his business objectives and his entrepreneurial DNA.
This is quite different from “knowing the law” or “managing a lawsuit”.
More in tune with the “rainmaker” of the financial world, the one who “makes things happen”, a Trusted Advisor deals exclusively with the most critical functions, delegating to other operators the bulk of second-tier activities.
It is necessary to tailor legal opinions to the specific meaning they have with respect to the client’s business model, a model that must be deeply known and understood, the opinion developed with the aim of contributing to the pursuit of the business strategy‘s objectives and goals.
Legal and economic issues must be translated into business consequences and business action plans.
Most business leaders are not interested in 30 pages of technical-legal advice, what they are looking for is a concise and clear page of opinions and recommendations for action to be taken, which can be used with the company executives and the board.
STRATEGIC LEGAL ADVISOR
- Proactive problem-solving
- Strategic creative thinking
- Anticipating customer needs
- Focus on business goals
- Effective communication:
“LEGAL SOLUTIONS INTEGRATED INTO BUSINESS OBJECTIVES”
The fundamental prerequisite is a strong cross-cutting interdisciplinary legal expertise, remarkable legal methodology (legal thinking and argument) enabling the forecasting of regulatory changes, socio-economic trends and repercussions on business and society.
The other requirement to carry out strategic consultancy such as Trusted Advisor is the possession of technical skills in Business Management and Economics.
The key role of strategic anticipation consulting is to develop scenarios of forecasting in all possible areas and with interdisciplinary approach:
➞ Law
➞ Science and Technology
➞ Environment and Sustainable Development
➞ Business Economics and Economic Geography
Business Economics and Economic Geography
The fundamental qualities of a Trusted Adviser focused on Anticipation are therefore intuition and:
- Analytical prospective thinking (interdisciplinary)
- Anticipation (predictive decision making) is the ability to predict future developments in a variety of contexts, on the basis of the assumption that expected futures condition the trends of our present in a similar measure to what our past does.
- A strategic tool of fundamental importance for long-term planning.
- Resilience and Adaptation
- Geopolitical Perspicacity
- Risk and change management
- Development of new products and services
This holistic approach enables to
➞ Better understand consolidated trends
➞Identify emerging trends and potential ramifications
➞ Preventing the impact of new technological-environmental-socio-economic-political-legal variables
➞ Incubating new ideas
CORPORATE FORESIGHT
Anticipation Consulting is a genuine third level of observation of the future.
I ➞The first level is forecast, used for short-term predictions.
Using data from the past organized into historical series, to one or more interrelated variables. (e.g. weather, Gross Domestic Product)
II ➞ foresight, the medium-term perspective.
Dozens of variables, organized into specific and uncertain clusters (e.g. market dynamics).
III ➞Anticipation deals with the medium/long-term, up to generational intervals. It uses forecast and foresight data in the present, to allow the management of uncertainty.
The focus of anticipation revolves around the present, focusing on the dichotomy “construction-destruction” of ” desirable and undesirable” possible futures.
A well-structured anticipation strategy moves from the exploration of current system dynamics, analyzing trends, identifying both weak and dominant signals in their variations.
A greater anticipation capacity increases the resilience and adaptation of organizations, whether they are companies or institutions and communities.
For further information and quotations of these services, please fill in the form in the CONTACTS section to arrange a pre-assessment meeting.