"Many Indian law firms, Which had entered the LPO industry, have gone

Ganesh Natarajan ,CEO , Mindcrest India

"Many Indian law firms, Which had entered the LPO industry, have gone away"

The CEO of Mindcrest Ganesh Natarajan strongly believes that LPO is a very specialised field and is not everyone’s cup of tea. In an exclusive interaction with The Dollar Business, he talks about the initial days of the industry, Mindcrest’s forte, and reasons why there won’t be a rise in competition in the near future Sisir Kumar Pradhan | @TheDollarBiz

Ganesh Natarajan ,CEO, Mindcrest India

TDB: Please help us understand Mindcrest’s LPO service offerings, particularly legal publishing services. Ganesh Natarajan (GN): Right from the beginning, Mindcrest has been offering four services: litigation support, corporate services, compliance services and legal content and publishing. We have done legal publishing work for the past 10+ years. This is relatively complex work as it requires a very good understanding of the US legal system and US laws. We provide this work out of our India and US delivery centres. This is an area where Mindcrest has established a very good reputation and has developed very good experience. The LPO sector has grown because of all of the reasons mentioned above and also because the legal sector, at large, is relatively recently recognising the benefits of outsourcing, whether onshore or offshore. Frankly, I feel LPO firms have barely touched upon 10% of the available work that can be outsourced in the legal sector. There is a tremendous potential for growth. TDB: Can you give us a basic picture of how Mindcrest came into being, the founding members, initial funding and the initial days? GN: Mindcrest is a pioneer in legal support services founded by four people – me, George Hefferan, Rohan Dalal and Teju Deshpande – and was the first such firm to open its doors in 2001. We bootstrapped the company using our own funds until we were able to offload a minority stake in 2007 to an outside investor. The impetus to start Mindcrest came from the outsourcing of other services to India and the thought as to why can’t it be done in the legal sector as well. Our initial clients were both corporations and law firms and the focus was on doing legal research. However, we quickly expanded our service offerings to include other services I mentioned earlier. Over the years, we have expanded services under each of our four offerings and have built expertise in specific areas. TDB: How critical is the role of law firms in legal process outsourcing? GN: Law firms are a critical component of what we do, both in terms of being our direct clients and also who we work with on various client projects. We work under the guidance of law firms in litigation matters. We also collaborate with law firms in developing new products and services and taking it to the market, wherein the law firm provides certain kinds of expertise and we provide complementary services. TDB: Why is India still the most preferred LPO destination despite competition from several quarters? GN: India is still the most preferred offshore destination because of the large number of attorney resources that are available. Although most of the work that requires a high level of expertise will remain in US, we are today able to provide very high quality work from India. Our approach is a Best-Shore approach, where we send work to respective geographies based on client requirements, expertise, foreign language capability etc. In fact, most of our clients are very bullish on India. TDB: Outsourcing of legal services pose several ethical challenges, related to confidentiality, disclosure and billing. Has Mindcrest faced such challenges? GN: Most of the challenges that you are talking about were much greater in the early days of Mindcrest. Today, we have various systems, processes, methods and training in place. So, they don’t really pose significant hurdles anymore. We have the standards in place and strict adherence to these standards that make it easier today. TDB: In recent years, many full-fledged law firms are entering the outsourcing sector. Many LPOs are also going for mergers and acquisitions. What do you expect the trend to be in the near future? GN: I do not see many more law firms coming into the LPO sector. In India, many law firms that entered the sphere, have gone away. In US, only a very small minority of law firms are in the LPO business. Consolidations and acquisitions will continue to happen as is the case with any business. The smart plays will center around the acquisition of clients and specific domain knowledge that can be parlayed in conjunction with existing services to get a multiplier effect. TDB: Can you recall a situation where the corporation or the law firm that had outsourced work to you had a view but you convinced them to change that view, which was ultimately beneficial for the client? GN: I remember the first big litigation case we did for a major global corporation. Their law firm had never done outsourcing work and it took some effort to convince them (multiple meetings and a pilot phase) that we could do the work out of India. This was a big win for our industry as a whole as it was the biggest case done out of India until then. It was also a major case that everyone was aware of. TDB: You have witnessed the evolution of the LPO industry since the beginning. What have been the most striking changes over the years? GN: The most striking changes are actually two: one, there were many people who got into the LPO industry who are not there anymore. This has made our industry more robust and mature. The second change is that clients have accepted the model and are entering into long-term contracts. TDB: What are the major challenges before the LPO sector as a whole and for Mindcrest, in particular? What do you think should be done to tackle them? GN: Law is a vast professional area and we need to be nimble and innovative in coming up with creative solutions for business problems that are driven by legal issues. This also requires that we constantly build domain knowledge at all levels in the organisation and couple that knowledge with practical solutions for our clients. TDB: Philippines has come up as an attractive (cost effective) destination for the LPO industry but you have no operations there. Is there any specific strategy behind this? GN: Philippines is not a major factor when we acquire clients. We continue to prefer India as we have demonstrated the efficacy of doing work out of India and have been doing so successfully for the past 13 years. TDB: Tell us something about your future endeavours. Which new verticals/services are you looking to add to your portfolio in the near future? GN: We are adding several specific verticals and expertise to our portfolio of offerings but I would not like to disclose it at this point in time. TDB: Wage inflation has become a major issue for several industries in India. Is that and other issues like high attrition rates a challenge for you? GN: Inflation and attrition have never been an issue for Mindcrest at all. We spend a lot of time and effort in people management, learning and development and talent management as we believe that they are the key to be successful in a knowledge based business like ours.

"Many Indian law firms, Which had entered the LPO industry, have gone away"

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