Whitepaper | Data Requests & Reporting
Transparency reporting provides the public with a window into how and why their data is being accessed for court orders, search warrants, subpoenas, National Security Letters, and other types of information requests. Voluntary publishing of Transparency reports by impacted organizations has seen an upward trend in the last decade. These reports indicate increasing volumes of information demands both domestically and globally. Download our latest whitepaper, “Data Requests and Transparency Reporting: A Game of Show and Tell?” to learn more about these trends in transparency reporting.
Importance of Legal Function Strategic Planning
The role of the General Counsel continues to evolve. More and more it is viewed as a full C-Suite executive often tasked to contribute to areas well beyond providing legal guidance. They are tasked to solve broader business problems that may or may not have a genesis in legal or regulatory issues. The increased focus on environmental, sustainability and governance (“ESG”) by Boards and Senior Executives has also impacted and expanded the role and expectations of the General Counsel. To successfully navigate the increased responsibilities and to optimize performance, legal department needs to develop and implement a Legal Function Strategic Plan. To read the full article please click the button below:
Finding the Right Fit – Outsourcing Strategies for Financial Services Marketing Teams
For financial services organizations, outsourcing is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. One organization may outsource a single project, such as reformatting materials per new branding guidelines, whereas another may choose to outsource whole functional areas such as quarterly updates of factsheets or presentations or posting regularly updated materials to websites and content libraries. The latter results in effectively having their managed services partner operate as an extension of their internal team. Financial firms are notoriously individualistic, seeing their processes and approach as complex and unique preferring to blaze their own trail on just about everything, and outsourcing is no exception. End of the day, the common need is ensuring marketing projects are adequately and professionally staffed, deadlines are met, branding guidelines are upheld, and visuals are compelling, all while staying within budget constraints. Admittedly, this is not easy, but it can be done.
How Legal Departments are Leveraging Technology to Manage Their Contracts
Ari Kaplan spoke with Gabriel Buigas, the new executive vice president and head of contracts, compliance, and commercial services at Integreon, an alternative legal and global managed services provider. We discussed how organizations are leveraging technology to manage their contracts, the contracting challenges organizations should expect in 2022, and advice for legal professionals seeking alternative career paths beyond law firms and legal departments. LISTEN TO PODCAST
Integreon and UpLevel Ops Partner to Offer Corporations ‘Legal Operations Support-as-a-Service’
With the goal of providing full end-to-end legal operations support to corporate clients worldwide, Integreon and UpLevel Ops have formed an alliance to offer what they are calling Legal Operations Support-as-a-Service. The alliance combines the managed services offerings of alternative legal services provider (ALSP) Integreon with the outsourced strategic advisory services of corporate legal operations consulting firm UpLevel Ops. To find out more please click the button below:
Integreon Announces Alliance with UpLevel Ops
Collaboration Brings Full End-to-End Legal Operations Consulting and Support Offerings to Corporate Marketplace January 4, 2022 – FARGO, ND AND LONDON, UK – Integreon, a trusted global managed services and alternative legal services provider (ALSP), today announced a new alliance with UpLevel Ops, a leading corporate legal operations consulting firm. The Integreon/UpLevel Ops alliance provides full end-to-end legal operations support to corporate clients around the globe. This collaboration of industry leaders offers clients a robust Legal Operations Support-as-a-Service offering, combining UpLevel Ops’ outsourced strategic advisory services acumen with Integreon’s efficiency, process and metrics-driven managed services. This combination will bring unprecedented value and agility to corporate clients addressing a myriad of legal operations needs including strategic advisory work, technology selection and implementation, training and thought leadership to ongoing financial/budgeting support, project management, invoicing review and tech support. Integreon’s Contracts, Compliance and Commercial (CCC) Services has expanded tremendously in recent months under the leadership of Gabriel Buigas who joined as Executive Vice President (EVP) and head of CCC in October. Gabriel is working closely with Stephanie Corey, Co-founder and General Partner at UpLevel Ops, to ensure Integreon can meet the needs of a thriving legal operations function. Buigas said, “UpLevel Ops is an ideal partner to bring this offering to market as they are a trusted partner and industry thought leader staffed by a team with deep expertise and hands-on experience in legal operations. Integreon has a 23-year history as a trusted managed services provider to many leading corporations and CCC is similarly led by a team of practitioners with deep expertise in legal function management.” Stephanie commented, “After we’ve guided clients in setting up their legal operations infrastructures, they often ask if we could stay on to administer these tools and services. But we believe this takes us away from our core competency of providing strategic advice. Partnering with Integreon allows us to bring a complete solution and tangible benefits, insights, and efficiency to the corporate legal ops market. Our shared clients are sophisticated buyers addressing complex challenges. Their organizations will benefit greatly from the skillset and industry knowledge that UpLevel and Integreon bring together to meet their diverse needs.” “The Integreon/UpLevel Ops partnership will bring an exciting new element to our support for legal operations, drawing upon the best talent, methodology and technology solutions for optimized results,” said Bob Rowe, CEO of Integreon. “Gabriel Buigas, Stephanie Corey, and their respective teams are hitting the ground running to advance and develop this initiative and many others.” For more information about the Integreon and its Contracting Services, visit: https://www.integreon.com/what-we-do/contracting-services/ or email info@ integreon.com. For more information about UpLevel Ops, visit: https://www.uplevelops.com/. About Integreon Integreon is a trusted, global provider of award-winning legal, business, and research support solutions to leading law firms, legal departments, financial institutions, and professional services firms. The company applies a highly trained, experienced team of over 3,500 employees globally to a wide range of problems that require scale and expertise, enabling clients to become more operationally efficient by streamlining operations, maximizing investment, and improving the quality of work they provide their end clients. With delivery centers on three continents, Integreon offers multi-lingual, around-the-clock support, as well as onshore, offshore, and onsite delivery of services. Integreon is owned by EagleTree Capital, a leading New York-based private equity firm that has invested approximately $2.7 billion of equity capital since inception. For more information about Integreon’s extensive range of services, email [email protected], visit www.integreon.com and follow Integreon at LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. About UpLevel Ops UpLevel Ops is an advisory firm specializing in providing services for in-house legal departments and law firms. UpLevel Ops is unique in that its founders spent the vast majority of their careers in-house. UpLevel Ops provides a complete range of legal operations support and executive coaching, including legal department strategies, IT solutions, finance and budget guidance, contracts management, talent management and development, benchmarking, best practices and metrics, and outside counsel selection and management. Visit https://www.uplevelops.com/ for more information or contact [email protected].
Chasing the Sun to Produce Impactful Global Presentation Graphics and Marketing Materials for Financial Services
Creating branded presentation graphics and marketing assets in the financial world can be nuanced, labor-intensive work. Often, international financial organisations must customize their communications based on a variety of factors including language, cultural sensitivities, compliance, and deadlines. These challenges are compounded by the high-volume demand for graphics materials which firms must flawlessly churn out on a daily basis, sometimes across the globe and around the clock. Firms often must “chase the sun” and coordinate work done in different time zones to ensure that deadlines are met and quality standards are upheld. To meet the demand, global financial firms must have an efficient machine for producing impactful presentation graphics quickly, while ensuring they meet compliance requirements. Though this is easier said than done, it can be accomplished with the right resources, process, and technology in place. There are several variables and best practices to keep in mind for successfully producing high-quality deadline-driven marketing and presentation graphics on an international scale. Adjusting for Cultural and Geographical Differences Marketing teams for financial organisations can develop messaging that is spot-on for certain markets, and yet the same phrases fall flat elsewhere. Why? Because language is important, sometimes down to the choice of a single word. Taglines that may be pleasing in the US may be inappropriate or incomprehensible in China and vice versa. This highlights the need to have a local language expert on call for every major market. Having a “go-to” team that can vet and adjust text content to “read” properly in each region is essential. Cultural differences manifest in graphics and aesthetic presentation as well as language. A US office may gravitate toward a particular “look and feel” that substantially diverges from EMEA or APAC preferences. However, all materials still need to consistently present, serve, and reinforce the core brand despite these variances. This underscores the importance of developing versatile templates for marketing materials which enforce graphic standards while still allowing for creative engagement and tailoring for taste. Inclusivity and Special Needs Accommodation Corporate social responsibility for many financial organisations includes ensuring that everyone has access to the same consumer or user experience. This includes design and content for marketing presentations, graphics, digital content, and other collateral materials. Companies who take this extra step to accommodate individuals with special needs and disabilities can enhance their brand and image by focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Financial organisations can also mitigate risk and prevent litigation through inclusivity measures. For example, financial institutions are increasingly under the microscope to comply with the U.S. Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and lawsuits for ADA violations are prolific. Financial firms are therefore highly motivated to comply with ADA rules. ADA compliance is important for financial institutions and its customizations can range from tagging and remediating PDF files or making sure the firm’s website is compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Print Production Variables and Budgeting Variables exist on the production side, too. For example, UK companies typically print and design for A4 paper size, while US firms use “letter” size. If a firm is producing marketing materials for both countries, either they need to standardize on A4 (which is larger than 3/5 “letter” size) or develop two separate templates. Also, the firm must allocate sufficient budget and time to account for different print production and distribution costs based on where materials are being printed and where they will be sent. Even business cards can pose a problem for design and printing because the amount of information provided on a card in Asia is generally much lengthier than what’s usually included on an American business card. Firms may design cards for US offices, only to findtheir templates are too small to be practically used by Asian counterparts. Chase the Sun Project Management Whether financial institutions are relying on a centralized marketing team based out of one location or a decentralized network of regional delivery centers, their project management needs to be seamlessly orchestrated. Financial companies are used to coping with crushing quarterly deadlines which make 4 or 5 weeks of each three-month period both intense and exhausting. When demand is heavy, global firms benefit from creating a “chase the sun” model in which presentation work is staggered across several time zones. As one team sunsets for the day, another – perhaps located in another country or continent – takes over and continues the work. This process repeats until the projects get done. The end goal is to produce memorable collateral which are on-message, on-brand and reflect the desired “look and feel” depending on where they will be used. This requires a flexible resourcing model which can morph on the fly, adding team members here and removing 4/5 others there to finish on time. For example, when the US team is saturated with requests for PowerPoint presentations, an “overflow” team must be available to help, whether it’s another team within the firm or an external managed services resource. Managed services providers like Integreon have global teams of creative services resources to address round-the-clock needs. A team in the company’s Manila or India offices may start a presentation or web production work to support an APAC client project, especially for time sensitive work that cannot wait for Integreon’s UK and US offices to come online. Known for excellence in process and workflow engineering, Integreon is skilled with shifting hours between its delivery centres to accommodate different needs. The company can source virtually any local translation or specialized skillset needs relevant to the project at hand. Integreon also leverages state-of-the-art technology and strategic partnerships to achieve greater efficiency and automation. Financial companies can benefit from a robust set of presentation macros and sales enablement tools to help their people move faster. These tools help them manage content, speed work through the pipeline, and uphold template compliance. Marketing departments at global financial organisations are under enormous pressure to produce presentation graphics and collateral materials 24/7/365. Enlisting the help of qualified managed services providers like Integreon who can chase the
Integreon Appoints Legal Industry Veteran Gabriel Buigas to Lead Contracts, Compliance, and Commercial Services Business Unit
Global Alternative Legal and Managed Services Company Welcomes Seasoned Leader with Deep Experience at Law Firms and In-House Corporate Legal to Support Client Innovation October 27, 2021 – FARGO, ND AND LONDON, UK – Integreon, a global managed services and alternative legal services provider, has appointed legal industry veteran Gabriel Buigas as Executive Vice President (EVP) and head of its highly successful Contracts, Compliance, and Commercial (CCC) Services business unit. He will leverage a deep bench of talent to drive momentum and innovation, effectively expanding CCC’s global reach and service offerings. Gabriel brings 25+ years and tremendous depth of experience to Integreon. Previously, he was EVP, Digital Contracting and Commercial Solutions (DCCS) at UnitedLex where he was responsible for leading the DCCS business unit. Prior to UnitedLex, Gabriel was with Hewlett-Packard (HP) for 19 years, ultimately ascending to the role of Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel for HP’s largest business unit, while also overseeing Legal Strategy and Operations for the overall legal function. Before HP, he practiced law at large firms after earning his J.D. from Harvard Law School. He also holds a BBA (Bachelor’s of Business Administration) in International Finance and Marketing from the University of Miami’s Herbert Business School. “Gabriel Buigas is the right person to lead Integreon’s Contracts, Compliance, and Commercial Services business unit, and we are extremely pleased to welcome him on board,” remarked Integreon CEO Bob Rowe. “Gabriel’s uniquely broad experience encompasses outsourced legal services, in-house corporate legal positions, professional services and law firms. His diverse knowledge ideally qualifies him to understand and bring additional innovation to our CCC client base and the organization as a whole. I am confident that Gabriel’s leadership, skills and expertise will provide a strong foundation for CCC’s future growth and innovation.” “Joining Integreon’s leadership team provides a great opportunity to leverage all my experience developing and delivering compelling CCC solutions to the marketplace,” said Gabriel Buigas. “We will continue to grow the Integreon business with a relentless focus on delivering material value to our clients in all our offerings.” For more information about CCC, visit: https://bit.ly/3vLBeIi. About Integreon Integreon is a trusted, global provider of award-winning legal, business, and research support solutions to leading law firms, legal departments, financial institutions, and professional services firms. The company applies a highly trained, experienced team of over 3,500 employees globally to a wide range of problems that require scale and expertise, enabling clients to become more operationally efficient by streamlining operations, maximizing investment, and improving the quality of work they provide their end clients. With delivery centers on three continents, Integreon offers multi-lingual, around-the-clock support, as well as onshore, offshore, and onsite delivery of services. Integreon is owned by EagleTree Capital, a leading New York-based private equity firm that has invested approximately $2.7 billion of equity capital since inception. For more information about Integreon’s extensive range of services, email [email protected], visit www.integreon.com and follow Integreon at LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.