LawFuel.com – Partners of international law firm Bird & Bird and ASE Consulting, specialists in IT-enabled change, today announced the launch of Baseline. This unique joint venture will bring together the range of multi-disciplinary skills required to help those driving major transformational programmes, both in the UK and internationally.
The new business venture will deliver at every stage of a major programme and will initially focus on supporting challenging IT projects. It will help review, recommend and resolve the highly complex issues that are invariably involved in achieving successful outcomes. The business will also be able to help in the initial planning, design, requirements identification, procurement and contracting phases.
Bird & Bird has an unrivalled track record of working on some of the world’s largest and most complex technology-enabled projects, and ASE Consulting brings over 25 years’ experience of working with a range of public and private organisations on driving major transformational changes.
Bird & Bird partner Dominic Cook said: “Like us, ASE Consulting is proven in this field, so we are excited to be working with such a strong partner. Together we will focus on delivering for organisations that are crying out for more effective one-stop, multi-disciplinary support. Globally some $70 trillion will be spent on infrastructure investments in the coming decade. But the major projects that drive much of this investment have a terrible track record. We aim to help clients be amongst the minority of organisations that deliver their transformational programmes successfully.”
ASE Consulting director Robin O’Connor added: “Major transformational projects have complex challenges and require a combination of legal, financial, commercial, technical and management skills to resolve them. Collectively we understand the inherent uncertainties associated with all major projects, and the need to drive behavioural changes as well as deliver technical solutions. By combining Bird & Bird’s approach with our own highly developed change management techniques, as well as our understanding of the challenges involved in technology projects, we believe we can deliver a new, integrated service that will be a much more effective solution to the challenges faced.”
David Kerr, Chief Executive of Bird & Bird, added: “Clients are increasingly requiring us to deliver our legal services in new ways and we have to think of innovative approaches to meet that demand. Baseline is an excellent example of how, we can be part of a more comprehensive solution for clients. That helps our clients and means we will be able to attract more high quality legal work, so it is a really significant step forward for the firm.”
“The legal services market is changing. Clients want law firms to demonstrably provide real value and this kind of innovative offering shows we are listening and responding to their requirements. They want to work with those who understand their issues, focus on delivering solutions to their challenges and share the risks with them. Baseline is an example of how this can be achieved and the fact that a leading specialist like ASE Consulting is working with us is a vote of confidence in the approach.”
