How collaboratively challenging the status quo resulted in regulatory innovation.

Article by Morgan Spain and Samantha Carroll.

Most organisations strive to be innovative, but can find it challenging to innovate collaboratively, with speed and courage, to deliver a desirable commercial outcome. We are key members of a team that recently brought an innovation to market when Ashurst launched the Obligation Management Solution (OMS) to help in-house lawyers and risk and compliance professionals to better understand and manage their complex obligations.

Getting innovation started
It all started with a client problem that we saw over and over again. Something that all our heavily regulated clients have to grapple with on a daily basis. On the one hand, most people might consider this problem as routine and boring, but, on the other hand, this problem is complex, voluminous and problematic if managed wrongly. We took the problem and thought differently about it – bringing together a team of deep experts across legal, risk and compliance who had different perspectives and experiences – as senior business managers, in-house lawyers, ex-regulators and professional advisors. Tapping into this collective experience, we ideated a concept that could solve a problem holistically across all use cases for all our clients. And so, OMS was born from a collaboration across Ashurst teams from Legal, Risk Advisory (our consulting practice), and Ashurst Advance (our NewLaw division). Together, these teams deliver the foundation of a holistic compliance management framework through relevant, tailored obligations information for people who need to navigate the labyrinth of regulatory compliance.

What innovation can deliver
In a nutshell, OMS provides clients with a comprehensive obligations register written in plain English with a risk and compliance overlay. The register only contains obligations that are relevant to an organisation’s specific circumstances (based on legal advice) and is updated monthly by Ashurst’s legal and risk experts. We find that OMS is used by legal, risk, compliance, and business operations functions to understand the obligations (including consequences) which apply to their organisations, help ensure they comply with those obligations, prepare for upcoming regulatory changes, and ultimately minimise compliance risk.

In delivering this new product successfully to market, we recognised three ingredients were essential for success in innovation:

1. Collaborative problem-solving
   After decades of advising clients on compliance and working in compliance roles, our team identified the need for a better solution to obligation management. Joining forces with fellow partners who had similar observations reinforced that there was market demand for an innovative approach to navigating regulatory compliance. The key to collaborative problem solving is focussing the team on the client problem, breaking it down into all of its facets, and looking at the problem from various angles and perspectives, based on the team’s lived experiences. This approach resulted in a truly client-centric solution.

“If you walk in the shoes of your clients and understand the problem you are solving, you cannot go wrong.”

2. A complementary range of skill sets
   A range of perspectives and professional backgrounds is required to solve complex problems. An innovative solution, like the OMS, required a multi-disciplinary team. Hailing from different disciplines – legal, risk advisory and new law – provided the ingredients needed to innovate and develop the solution. With the depth and breadth of knowledge, skills, and experience available in a large firm like Ashurst, there are a myriad of ways in which innovation can flourish by bringing together people with diverse experiences. These diverse skills were fundamental in designing a solution that is different from any other obligation subscription service available on the market – truly the first of its kind.

“The whole is truly greater than the sum of the parts.”

3. Having courage to challenge the status quo
   Our team had the courage and confidence to challenge the status quo – thinking and acting differently to innovate and address clients’ needs, bringing others on the innovation journey as we go, and bravely leading through the unknown. Part of challenging the status quo involves experimentation and failure, as things may not be perfect in the first round of innovation – persistence, learning and creative freedom pay dividends.

“If you believe in something, be prepared to back yourself and give innovation a go!”