The business side of the legal industry is undergoing a whirlwind of changes. Pressure from clients to demonstrate clear value, as well as increasing globalization of the law firm market top the list for many firms.

The rapidly shifting legal market landscape increasingly favors the “Agile Law Firm” – one willing to leverage new technologies and adopt more flexible business models and management strategies to gain competitive advantage in a rapidly evolving marketplace. The technology portion involves new tools that provide greater visibility into market and competitor dynamics, improve efficiency in the delivery of legal services, help manage matters profitably, and manage talent to match firm and market needs.

As an example of these types of tools, business intelligence solutions are increasingly being relied on to analyze, track and support financial, client and matter data to support more effective decision making. One doesn’t have to look far to see the recent surge in SharePoint-based applications that can create an array of portals, dashboards, intranets and other information streams to help streamline operations, create processes, manage workflows and inform decision making.

But cutting edge tools aren’t enough to create an agile law firm. Even the most well intentioned efforts may be hindered by a multitude of disparate processes and tools not being used or integrated, significant lack of training, and lack of clear direction among partners and associates, yielding inconsistent results.

Achieving agile capabilities means integrating the needed tools and content sets dynamically across all levels of the firm to realize significant performance improvements. That requires thoughtful planning, support and buy-in at the partner level, effective training and process compliance, and applying performance metrics to monitor execution. Firms should evaluate their level of execution against these goals, and strategize on how they can reach the next level of performance.

The end game is to deepen and broaden client relationships, as well as help the firm expand globally in order to participate in high-growth markets. Turning market challenges into opportunities for greater growth and profitability will involve taking risks, being willing to experiment, and investing in cutting edge technology, consulting and information solutions. A recent Thomson Reuters survey of law firm leaders found that 81 percent of firms expect to see an increase in technology investments to make their firms more efficient.

The reward for the most agile law firms will be having the right talent, governance, information and tools in place to thrive in the new, dynamic global legal services marketplace.

Tony Abena is president, Business of Law for Thomson Reuters Professional. Business of Law includes Elite, FindLaw, and Hubbard One.

An extended discussion on agile law firm capabilities can be found here.