Case Study – Chemicals & Life sciences
The Client
A highly progressive, full-services regional law firm, with a national reach. The practice has in excess of 600 staff and partners, located across five sites nationwide.
The Services
General Corporate & Commercial REACH advisory and compliance Intellectual Property
The Brief
The client, with whom Chartered Developments had already been working for three years, sought to investigate the possibility of targeting the chemicals & pharmaceuticals (“life sciences”) sectors in order to capitalise on recent client wins, and their involvement in several high profile acquisitions.
As a result, a sector specialist team was established, headed by a partner who was formerly the UK In-house Counsel for a renowned global chemical manufacturer. The firm’s full suite of corporate & commercial services were to be marketed, alongside specialist services relating to REACH compliance (chemicals), and Intellectual property (pharmaceuticals).
The Target
Key parameters for the database to be acquired by Chartered Developments for the client were:
Geography: Northern England only – from Liverpool to the west, to Hull in the east, to Newcastle in the north east, and Carlisle in the north west
Turnover: £10m+ OR Staff: 100+
Although a single decision maker existed for most “smaller” targets, consensus was reached that larger prospects would have either an in-house legal team (with Counsel) dealing with all matters, or decision making remit would be split
between the heads of various departments. Likely decision makers could, therefore, have included the likes of:
| Managing Director | Finance Director | Head of Legal Company |
| Secretary | HR Director | Head of Compliance |
| Site Manager | Head of IP |
Bearing this in mind, the client fully accepted the possibility that multiple appointments could be secured, subject to the identification of genuine present or future need, or a real interest to meet for relationship building purposes, given the firm’s experience of the sector.
The Campaign
Initially running for a trial period of three months, the client contracted to 20 hours of calling activity per month. An initial target was set to secure 3 qualified appointments per month (9 by the end of the trial). The client accepted the possibility that no new business would be secured, but took the view that they would be well positioned to gain instructions in the future should there have been no immediate opportunity to do so.
The objectives of the calling effort were to:
- Introduce the firm’s specialist sector experience, re-enforced by recent high profile client wins and acquisition involvement
- Establish the prospect’s history of acquiring external legal services, and on what basis they engaged advisors
- Inquire whether there would be transactional activity in the short to medium term
The Result
The calling campaign was successful in terms of exceeding expectations (12 appointments), and although the client did not secure instructions during that time, there remained sufficient optimism to continue and expand the campaign because of the level of enthusiasm shown by prospects toward the firm both during the initial calls, and the subsequent meetings.
The client opted to extend the campaign by adopting a national approach, resulting in the targeting of large multi-national organisations. Two years on from the initial trial, the campaign has seen 85 appointments, resulting in a number of high
profile clients being secured, including a major European petro-chemicals company (litigation), and an Indian manufacturer of “white label” pharmaceuticals (Intellectual Property). Follow-up calling activity continues on an ongoing basis, to ensure that relationships continue to develop from those initial meetings.
