Technology: When and How Will Tech Tools (Finally) Help?
Earlier this month, the Corporate Executive Board announced (Bloomberg story) that it will collaborate with Legal OnRamp in an initiative to bring new resources to law department members of the General Counsel Roundtable (which is a program of the Corporate Executive Board). The goal of the initiative is to enable in-house counsel to network and share knowledge with one another through the use of Web-based collaboration tools.
So what? What does that have to do with dealing with distressed debt?
It is important because we've (finally) reached the tipping point (ok, the starting point) where, over the next few years, all of the talk of "how technology will change our business" will be transformed into "technology sure has improved the process and the results of how we manage risk in our commercial investment portfolio."
You're probably thinking "whoa, that's a huge A to Z leap" and "what are you talking about?"
Understanding "how" disruptive technologies will change (for the better) my relationships with clients and the commercial finance industry is a passion of mine. I've worked on MISMO committees (Winstead is a member), written about eMortgage [PDF], created a legal database used in the sale of an equipment lease portfolio, dabbled in databases for commercial mortgage loan originations, and launched a Web-based tool used for monitoring workouts (on a national basis) for an apartment lender. I get the value proposition in technology as the tool for collaboration and separate deliverables.
However, I also understand that the commercial side of the financial services industry, and certainly most lawyers do NOT really understand the value proposition.
This announcement has spurred me to blog about it.
It is a huge subject. And "huge" can be difficult. Transforming high level, broad generalizations into practical pieces can be daunting (Or at least a sure path to joining the Don Quixote brotherhood). But the topic must be addressed. I'll write about both ends of the space.
This first piece will be a broad overview. In future postings, I'll be more practical.
Clearly, technology promises to dramatically change how we work with distressed investments. And all of us can point to tangible examples of this within the 4 walls of our offices when we look back to the downturn of the late 80s. The mag cards are gone. Spreadsheets are now everywhere. Databases now abound. We have e-mail. We have PCs. We're all "connected" (Perhaps with too much data and not with the "right" type of connectivity).
However, the next 10 years promise to bring even more dramatic changes--and it will be technology driven.
The changes will seem most dramatic in the following:
- Our interaction with each other as we handle distressed investments (new, different knowledge collaboration tools; [a form of social networking])
- New deliverables between lenders\servicers and vendors--even outside counsel (new format: paper to electronic)
We've already seen how disruptive technologies bring huge changes to newspapers, medicine, banking, etc.
We're about to experience similar changes in our handling of commercial investments, including distressed debt. We'll see the changes between all points of the vendor compass in the financial services industry. We'll even see it in the interaction with outside counsel.
From the legal perspective, various thought leaders have been harping on this for some time, including sharp thinkers such as:
- Richard Susskind, author of the book The End of Lawyers?
- Mark Chandler, GC of Cisco and one of the founders of Legal OnRamp
- And in my hometown of Dallas, Tom Mighell, co-author of a book published by the ABA on Legal Collaboration
In future postings, I'll comment on their work, and the work of others on changes coming to us through disruptive technology.
The "new" economy has changed. For those of us handling distressed commercial investments, disruptive technologies will form a basis for new relationships with richer, new business processes. The commercial finance service industry will be different, with new dialog and relationships. And technology will be the reason "why"-- and the back bone of it all.
Finally.
More to come . . .
If this topic is of interest to you, or if you have your own perspective, please post a comment.
