Electronic Health Records (EHR) Management and Challenges in Long Term Care Industry

The four most critical challenges faced by the Long Term Care industry today.

Shortage of Nursing Staff : One of the major challenges in the nursing homes today is shortage of adequate nursing staff. This has a direct impact on the service provided by the nursing staff as the residents have to wait for assistance from the nurses. In other words, the residents’ activities of daily living (ADLs) like bathing, dressing, eating, medication etc…are at times not being done in a timely manner. Hence it is very important for the nursing homes today to have adequate nursing staff.

Complex Regulations : Proper documentation and management of medical records is the most integral part and is a mandatory requirement for any Long Term Care facility. Nursing staff has been efficient in adhering to these requirements. But this is not the case in all Long Term Care Facilities. Errors may occur in cases where documentation is done manually. This increases the risk of regulatory citations and this can be avoided with a proper Electronic Health Records system in place. It would be any added advantage if your EHR software has both financial and clinical systems integrated under one system to take care of both financial and clinical functions in one platform.

Rising Operational Costs : Rise in operational cost directly impacts the cost of treatment given to the resident. Long Term Care facilities must have effective systems in place to controls costs. One option is to outsource their financial and clinical documentation part as this is a time consuming activity. This not only reduces the cost as there is no need to have additional staff assigned to perform these activities but also allows the LTC staff to focus on their core activity of providing quality health care to the residents.

EHR Management : It is very important to have a right EHR system in place. A lot of Long Term Care Facilities end up acquiring a system which is generic and not a customized platform. In this case LTC facilities are paying for software which has some of the functions which they might never use or which does not have some of the functions and are doing it manually. Hence it is very important to identify a right vendor who can provide you a customized and cost effective solution for your EHR software.

Any comments are welcome.

For further questions on effective EHR management call 408-856-6651 or e-mail chiragb@promantra.net

Ideas and Growth Opportunities in LPO Segment

U.S alone accounts for a large share of the $250 billion global legal market. Out of this huge chunk, it is generally estimated that 3 to 4 billion can easily be outsourced. Except for the courtroom representation and agreement, all other legal activities can be outsourced. Hence it need not be mentioned that the potential of this industry is immense. The percentage of the distribution of lawyers in U.S is also equally interesting. According to U.S Info, 73% of the lawyers in U.S are employed in private practice and 10% are working in the legal department of the corporate world and these two are the major segments addressable for outsourcing.

For example, in India few of the LPO companies have started doing what the BPO or KPO were doing, prioritize their area of operation and target their prospective clients. The primary reason for this being the limitation of the availability of skilled manpower. The scenario is similar to the one faced by the BPO industry after its rapid growth: lack of skill workforce. A report by NASSCOM said, the number of law graduates from different Law Schools in India is around 15000 every year. Out of this number, hardly 1000 students enter LPO every year. This may be because the industry is still in its nascent stage. Language also acts as a constraint in some cases as the attorneys working for LPO should have a sound knowledge on English.

Although this number is sure to grow in future, it might not be enough. It is thus important for the LPO industry to decide from the very beginning on which area of operation it wants to focus. An effort to tap all possible fields will make its resource thin thereby increasing its vulnerability to the competitors. In a survey in U.S, 24% of CEOs showed their concern over the ever mounting litigation cost. So companies will be keen in identifying areas where they can outsource their legal work and bring down their litigation cost. Considered this perspective, the corporate sector is the prime target for LPO. Corporate industry is one of the many industries that are conducive to the concept of outsourcing.

One thing that the LPO needs to adapt directly from KPO and BPO is a regular maintenance of on-site resources. Since the industry is at its nascent stage, it is important that it gets regular nurture and care from offshore as well as on-site entities. Any LPO player genuinely interested in expanding its business should have 20% of its resource on-site. This can be a combination of local law school hiring or a combination of H1-B1-L1 visas. Whatever may the approach be, a successful LPO needs to maintain an on-site resource that will directly interact with the clients and a strong team offshore that will work for the client. Only a successful combination of these two can ensure the prosperity of a Legal Process Outsourcing unit.

Evolving Legal Service Ecosystem: The Growth of LPO

After decades of stasis, the legal industry in the United States and other traditional common law system countries is in the midst of an evolution. The entire ecosystem of legal service- its market, agencies and partners are all going through a significant change. As buyers of legal service, the relation of the client with his attorney is under pressure because of the rising legal cost that the client has to bear. In a circumstance like this, the client demands greater value for every dollar that he spent, thus providing a perfect ecosystem for the growth of legal process outsourcing within the country and to other service provider countries like India, China and Philippines.

It is only a handful of traditional law firms that have been able to adapt and adjust with this situation resulting in increased share of profit per equity partner. For most others, it is a new era of competition, both with other law firms and the new players that have entered the market in response to the corporate buyers. In an environment, like this, the Senior Law Firm Partners and General Counsels (GC) in Corporate America face a big challenge. Their budgets are showing little or no growth as corporations and Law Firms take the cost line management very strictly. In the meantime, the rates of the Law Firms are rising on an annual average rate of 5 to 6 per cent. (LawMarketing, Nov 18 2007). A recent report by RSG Consulting showed that the key areas of concern among the clients are: rising fees of the attorneys and the heavy price of buying legal advice.

Keeping the client's demand in view, the Law Partners and General Counsels no longer turn to in-house hires or traditional firms for works like document review or contract administration. When the clients want cost efficiency without compromising for the quality of their work and prefer to outsource their work to offshore entities. India is particularly a favorite spot serving their purpose, as the lawyers are trained in common law system, speak English, deliver quality work product and are cost effective as compared to their U.S counterparts. This shift has also resulted in a move away from the traditional system of pricing on a time-spent basis to product pricing on a per-unit-basis. It also results in a change from dollar- per-hour to dollars-per-contract.

There is a paradigm shift in the traditional manner of segmenting legal work by these Law Partners and Corporate. The ongoing process of distributing high end and low end work to a cost effective and efficient provider available in low cost countries like India has certainly strengthened the ecosystem. A client may pay a full rate to the firm but the question is, is he happy paying $300 per hour to a first-year associate, when he can get that same quality of work in paying just a fraction of it. For example, in a M&A case, this unbundling of the law pyramid will make GCs move to new-model firms to manage the process and brief the key documents (in place of senior associates) and offshore entities to do the diligence review (in place of junior associates and paralegals). At each level, the cost efficiency will be significant.

These changes brought in by the Law Firms and Corporate for running their legal process as cost effectively as the rest of the processes in their business has in fact strengthened the entire ecosystem, including changes in overall industry outlook towards strategizing budgeting and execution of legal work. As the Corporate become more sophisticated, the law firms are forced to change their approach and the new entrants, both for the high-end (new model firms) and low end (outsourcing), stand strong in this changed ecosystem for legal service, thus giving more impetus to the growth of Legal Process Outsourcing.

Cyber Security Zone and LPO

The outsourcing regime rests on data protection and client confidentiality and to that extent, it is sensitive to any breach that might prove fatal to the entire business. Some of the recent happenings of data theft have pointed to the vulnerability of these areas. Data Protection and Client Confidentiality are crucial to any outsourcing business and more so in case of legal outsourcing. The success of any client-attorney relationship depend on the attorney's ability to assure the confidentiality of the client's data with high stakes and any breach thereof can be a matter of ethical and professional liabilitiess that an Attorney carries along with the brief. These are serious concern for LPO as well.

The first step towards achieving cyber security is to sensitize employees to the layers of responsibility. "Developing a culture of privacy and data protection," says Salman Waris, operations manager, Legal Circle, "is more important. People should be educated about what they are handling...and what the repercussions could be." In recent past, a case of theft and breach of sensitive data was reported by Titus & Co., a law firm of Delhi. The Delhi High Court even passed an injunction in this case against four lawyers that includes a Nigerian national from using the data and confidential information stolen from their previous employer, Titus & Co. This was probably the first case of cyber crime and data theft and it showed the liability of legal profession in India. Since then there has been concern within the industry propelling higher security checks and systems. In another such incident of cyber crime a software company in Gurgaon filed a case against one of its employees, for transferring sensitive data of the company to his personal mail ID and later using it to the benefit of a rival company.

Cases like these, directly bring the security of the companies under scanner. Physical security is not enough for the outsourcing companies. In addition to physical security, they also need other special infrastructure towards maintaining cyber security, like: web security, LAN/WAN security, security against malicious programs, like virus, secure login and logout of the resource along with tracking. Listed below are the best security practices for LPO and also the best security practice for any outsourcing business:

LPO Best Practice:

• Make quality customer service the highest priority.
• Do not sell outsourcing services as loss-leaders with the expectation of making it up later.
• Responsibility for all our actions when performing the services.
• Resist the urge to over discount.
• Listen to the customers for ways by which the service can be improved..
• Manage the outsourcing deals to optimize customer service, not short-term revenue.
• Take real measures to reduce turnover and keep the workforce happy and interested in the work.
  

Security Best Practices:

• Secure and dedicated infrastructure that meets ISO 27001 standards.
• 24/7 on-campus security staff
• Bio-Metric access controller to enter into the office premises
• Firewalls
• Point-to-point network connectivity using routers that are configured with DES encryption at both ends
• Anti-virus software
• User–ids and passwords to log into the Client systems.
• Disabled floppy, CD drives and USB mass storage devices.
• Security policies are defined (desktop, password, e-mail, and domain).
• Regular reviews of firewall logs
• Periodic network and host vulnerability tests
• Regular internal audits
• Client audit teams are allowed to conduct security audits on the dedicated network provided for their services.
• Information security management and control audits as per ISO 27001:2005 standards.

Before starting its operations, an outsourcing company have to have proper infrastructure for complete protection against data theft. In 2005, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) formulated certain standard of practice for Information Security Management. ISO/IEC 27001:2005, commonly known as ISO 27001, lists the requirements for the data protection of an outsourcing company.

Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC), a leader in nation's information security research and education released their report on areas of cyber threat that shows data as the primary motive for cyber crime. It also identifies five areas that are cyber-sensitive. They are: Malicious Software, especially those under the guise of networking sites, cyber warfare - targeting U.S economy and infrastructure, software robots- specifically the attack that spread through wireless and peer-to-peer economy, mobile convergence- threat of voice fraud, threats to VOIP and the evolving economy for cyber crime.

Data Protection Law has always been a matter of controversy. General awareness, integrity and a sound security are the only solutions for the biggest threat to the industry, which employs almost half of the total working population of the county.

Ethical Aspects of LPO: The Question of Attorney-Client Privileges and Confidentiality

Outsourcing legal work is not a new concept. Rather, the law firms have been outsourcing their legal work to domestic contractors for years. The only major distinction between using a contract attorney in U.S and that of LPO is that in LPO work is done by the attorneys and paralegals stationed offshore. The whole process of legal outsourcing is to the extent of providing third party or a captive supports and solutions to United States Attorneys and Law Firms in their work. It does not entail any direct legal practice and representing the clients before the courts. In other words the process of LPO is a caterer to the United States legal practitioner work.

The American Bar Association ("ABA") has already addressed the issue of outsourcing in the context of domestic outsourcing and contract attorneys. The recommendations of ABA provide the most significant source of information for understanding the ethical implication of LPO. Even then LPO raises separate ethical issues that attorneys need to be careful of while structuring this unique business relationship.

Unlike with BPO and KPO, LPO is capable of attracting business from U.S law firms and corporate for many reasons. The first and foremost is that LPO can make save substantial amount of money and bring down the administrative costs for its clients. And above all Indian lawyers are paid just a fraction of the remuneration earned by U.S. lawyers. In addition to the cost benefits, the LPO can deliver high quality work, in reduced turn-around-time and can also reduce churn for associate attorney.

Some of the LPO providers initially did not consider confidentiality and data security to be that important for the LPO business. But these are something more than just a simple desire to protect trade secrets. By downplaying these concerns the LPO providers failed to understand the role of ethics and attorney-client privilege that plays a very important role in U.S. legal profession and in its own business interest.

The concern for confidentiality and ethics has made the existing LPO players raise their levels of security and at the same time they need to be more aware of the ethical offshoots associated with legal outsourcing work. The growth of LPO depends to a large extent on its ability to perform and sensitize workers to that layer of responsibility. LPO raises some interesting issues as well and also regarding the ethical responsibility of an US Attorney to the extent of offshoring their work and hiring of LPO service.

In August 2006, the New York City Bar Association ("NYC Bar") directly addressed the issues involved and hot for LPO. The opinion provides an ideal blueprint for LPO best practices. It describes the major ethical considerations applicable to LPO and requires the service buyer attorneys to supervise the work flowing in from offshore legal outsourcing. The "Attorney Type Work" doctrine would, for all purposes, apply to LPO and to the extent of an extension of Attorney’s legal personality.

Other Bar Associations in the US have also expressed their opinion in favor of offshoring work to LPO. On June 19, 2006, the Los Angeles County Bar Association published its opinion and expressed its concerns on the ethical considerations in outsourcing of legal services. Following this, the opinion of San Diego County Bar Association also shows its support for LPO. On January 18, 2008, Florida Bar expressed their position and concern for the ethical considerations of legal outsourcing business.

Indian LPOs are in the nascent stage and slated to grow. The industry is yet to mature. But ethics and the question of attorney-client confidentiality remain an important concern for the industry, if it has to attract that large chunk of work flowing out of U.S. Ethical implications carry an overt meaning when it comes to noble professions, like legal services. The LPO providers have to keep this in mind before deciding on anything.

Legal Outsourcing- Breaking the Business Barrier

The indiscipline rise in a law firm’s operational and administrative costs in the past few years has logically caused major law firms to outsource their legal and paralegal work offshore. For the simple reason that the compensation desired and expected by a fresh law school graduate is much higher in the United States. With the ever rising operational costs, it is no wonder that law firms find it economically difficult to hire and sustain these fresh and experienced attorneys who are required for high end legal work such as, complex mergers and acquisitions, patent prosecution, contract drafting and litigation, when it has become possible for them to offshore their work to countries like India with massive human and intellectual resource.

The possibility of outsourcing of legal work has turned out to be a boon for these Law Firms and Corporate America, thereby bringing down the ever growing legal and litigation cost. Although, conceptually in a nascent stage and despite the current worldwide recession, legal process outsourcing has become a more viable business option for its existing and prospective buyers and is slated to grow further. The exponential cost increase in performing legal and litigation work has made it more reasonable for the law firms to look up to offshore their work to professional workforce--skilled but relatively cheap—for performing the similar tasks for both simple as well as complex legal work. India has an extraordinary edge there as serious service provider.

Though, many companies have found their business comfort by offshoring the high-end and the low end services, the companies and firms are cautious about the client related confidentiality issues and any possible liability and error damage that they might be held responsible for on account of outsourcing the work and above all that work is being performed offshore. The attorney-client confidentiality plays a very significant role in this entire process. And this has been an obvious concern for the growth of LPO in India as well as other countries. But looking around, increasing number of US law firms are now convinced about the safety and precautionary standards being adopted by these LPO. Lower litigation cost is another wildcard for the growth of LPO.

The LPO industry in India is growing at a remarkable velocity. When other KPO verticals are growing at a rate of 30 to 35 per cent per annum, the growth of legal service is pegged at 40 per cent annually. Just within few years of its takeoff, the LPO industry has moved, innovating new business models and displays matured results. Apart from the traditional business player in the LPO spectrum, the industry also sees a sudden investment interest from the venture capitalists and the established private equity funds:

• Pangea3 has accomplished US$7 million in Series C funding by Sequoia Capital India. The company has declared to use the fund towards development, recruitment and marketing.Mindcrest also received funding from a Chicago based company, Talon Asset Management in December 2006.
• SDD Global Solutions went for a comprehensive endowment agreement with SFP Priority Co. Ltd.
• Clutch Group, the Bangalore-based LPO backed by Jerry Rao, (formerly known as JuriMatrix) has accomplished a funding from Angel funding. The company is on its way of increasing its employee strength as it is getting regular projects.
  
• Unitedlex based in Gurgaon is another LPO which has drawn investments from Helion Ventures. The company is in the hiring mode adding additional work force of almost 500 employees, managers and associates.
• Recently, Sanshadow Consultants, an LPO firm located in Delhi received strong investment from the Band of Angels, a group of successful entrepreneurs who invest in start up or early stage ventures and provides services to overseas market like US and Europe.
• The Mumbai-based LPO firm Inventurus Knowledge Solutions received investments from Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, a leading PE investor in the country to the tune of $5.5 million. The company focuses on IP, litigation support and financial transactions.

The high potentiality of this business has indeed lured important BPO players, like Infosys and Wipro towards LPO. While the legal outsourcing industry is fighting with challenges like rising wage, depreciating dollar value, billions of dollars worth legal business is waiting at the other side.

Legal Process: Steering through the uncertain economic climate

The present economic meltdown has crashed many major financial institutions of the Wall Street. With the colossal collapse of financial giants, like Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual, the banking and financial crisis deepened in Europe and other parts of the world. Just when the U.S economy is trying to find some relief through outsourcing, the strictures of World Bank against SATYAM, one of the greatest IT and outsourcing companies in India, on the ground of moral turpitude came as a huge blow.

Although a ban was imposed on Wipro in 2007 by the World Bank but it was only after the fiasco of Satyam Computers that Wipro decided to make it public. Along with Wipro, Megasoft, another IT company of India and Gap International and Nestor Pharmaceuticals also faced World Bank’s fury. All these questioned the authenticity of corporate governance of India and brought it under scanner. Added to this is the change of guard in U.S that threatens outsourcing of jobs offshore. The change at the White House has brought in President Obama’s popular debate on the business viability of outsourcing. But this does not read any misfortune for the LPO industry of India. In August 2008, the American Bar Association (“ABA”) Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility issued a formal opinion (also referred as the Formal Opinion 08-451) in support of U.S. lawyers outsourcing their legal work offshore, provided they adhere to the set rules.

Prior to that The Bar Committees of Los Angeles County, New York City, San Diego County and the Bar Association of California have declared that U.S. lawyers can outsource their legal work off the US boundaries and to the extent of their liability under Attorney-Client privileges. Hence the LPO industry of India can expect a huge inflow of legal work even during this downturn. The Process of Outsourcing has become one of the preferred and cost–effective tools for the U.S law firms and Attorneys.

Considering the huge difference in cost between attorneys in U.S. and that in India, it is obvious that the U.S corporate will cling to outsource their legal services in an attempt to gain profitability during a situation of economic crunch. The downturn has also given rise to new forms of business, like: Corporate Compliance, Customer Guidance Work and of course Risk and Conflict Management.

The LPO industry in India today involves high end niche area services related to Corporate and Regulatory Compliance, Corporate Governance, Contract Review and Management and Intellectual Property. Interestingly, a major part of these works are coming from U.K and U.S, where the cost of litigation is very high. Of course the driving factor here is the uncompromising quality of Indian LPO-producing quality work product at a much competitive price.

LPO Industry: The Future is Here

National Association for Software and Services Company (NASSCOM) in its report, describes Legal Process Outsourcing as “the next big thing” to happen to India, as far as the outsourcing industry is concerned. In a very recent article titled “Thought Leaders” by Reena Sengupta and Paul Solman, published by the Financial Times (London) in their 2008 annual issue of “Innovative Lawyers” states,

“The trend that is having the most impact on the thinking of the partners at top law firms is the impact of globalization and its intersection with people and technology. In particular, the way in which legal work is resourced and the location in which it gets done is coming under greater scrutiny. Outsourcing to India was the theme of many top-ranked submissions both from company legal departments and private practice”.

Approximately one-fourth of the top U.S. companies today have shown their concern on the ever mounting cost of litigation and other legal expenses that virtually takes away a large chunk of their annual corporate spending and is surely a concern on account of their profitability. It is quite obvious that they would start to look for some viable alternatives and conclude outsourcing both for their low and high end process as most cost effective without compromising for the quality of work. The difference in wages of an Indian attorney and that in U.S. and U.K. affirms this fact; an Indian attorney charges almost 80 per cent less than his U.S. or U.K. counterparts.

Several factors encouraged the growth of LPO in India. The graph of the development of LPO in India reveals a result that is overwhelming and why not? The legal system in India and the usage of English as the medium of instruction at our Law Schools, coupled with a solid Common Law background that we posses, provides an ideal knowledge and resource structure that has helped us gear for the substantial growth in the LPO spectrum. Hence with a minimal training, it has been possible for our Indian lawyers to deliver high quality legal work product. India is thus all set to complement the LPO wave.

From the Indian perspective, the legal work outsourced to India might only constitute 2 per cent of the global legal spending, which is valued at US$ 80 million. In its recent surveys Forrester Research speculates that in the coming years, the LPO market in India will see a tremendous surge of legal work that would be outsourced to the country and that may in turn generate huge job opportunity for our law graduates and this demand is slated to grow up to 35,000 job opportunities by the year 2010 and further taking it up to 79,000 opportunities by 2015.

The U.S. corporate sector holds great opportunities for the LPO of countries, like India. The need for legal advice is high and we can certainly assist them with the required back-end support. It need not be mentioned that the possibilities of this industry are immense. We have entered the era of Legal Process Outsourcing. It’s time for us to witness the change it brings in the outsourcing industry.

Challenging Trends in LPO Industry

Outsourcing has been there for more than two decades. Some say that the process of Legal and Knowledge Outsourcing has been an intrinsic business offshoot when the regular and high end Business Process work was low or completely dried up. However, this is not the sole reason why LPO is considered a green pasture for the existing and upcoming service providers. What has made LPO business lucrative is the cost benefits and effectiveness of knowledge intensive high-end work. Best utilization of people assets is an essential strategy. With markets tightened and volatile, companies have relied much on acquisitions to drive growth and to this extent outsourcing has turned out to be a proven tool for improving services and containing their ever increasing operating costs.

The University of NSW survey has considered the three distinct categories of cost, innovation and risk factors as drivers for outsourcing and established their relevant importance in the decision making process. Law firms have finally woken from their slumber to face the reality that there are increasing array of legal work to be outsourced offshore. The exorbitant hourly rates simply do not wash any more with clients when it comes to routine level legal support work. Outsourcing their legal work has surely taken away the burden of ever increasing and nightmarish litigation and legal costs off the shoulders of Corporate Americans. On the other hand outsourcing their legal work has helped the U.S. attorneys and law firms reduce their establishment and professional costs without compromising on quality and professional timeline that is the foremost concern in the legal business. The New York, Florida and San Diego Bar associations have all concluded that subjected to certain safeguards there is no reason why a law firm cannot outsource offshore both support and higher value legal work.

Considering the high margins of profit, some of the big players of the industry are showing their affinity to tap these markets as well. Needless to say, that the technology plays a significant role in outsourcing offshore. It has a two-fold effect. Firstly, it enables the performance of increasingly more complex legal tasks at the simple push of a button and secondly, it has opened a vast pool of common law trained legal talent internationally, who are now available to assist law firms and legal departments in the U.S. and the U.K. Today legal outsourcing is considered a management strategy, very crucial to the corporate output and practice sustainability. It has matured much beyond purely cost reduction to a flexible business model and drive innovation. A recent study by PricewaterhouseCoopers, "Outsourcing comes of age: the rise of collaborative partnering", showed that three quarters of worldwide organizations say access to talent is an important or very important reason why they outsource. Last year we saw some crucial level of VC investment enabling the world's largest BPOs to enter the legal outsourcing business that has placed legal outsourcing companies in the scaled up position.

It is difficult to find a composite of legal aptitude in every law student. Hence the LPO companies are required to diligently impart training following similar methodologies and rigor to maintain quality control. In India the list of LPO players includes on the top, companied like LawScribe, Pangea3, or Quislex, to name a few are the market leaders. The advantage that they utilize in their favor are a band of skilled attorneys and paralegals training resources, legal tools, stability of their on-site office location and wide access to world wide legal research platform, which makes them trust worthy for the clients/law firms.

Apart from the United States and U.K., the most mature outsourcing region in Europe is Scandinavia, with Norway and Sweden the undisputed leaders. Language sensitivity is one reason why European companies often choose near shoring as compared to off shoring. There are, for example, many outsourcing suppliers in Romania and Northern Africa who offer services in French. In Germany, people largely prefer shared services, although outsourcing is popular in the manufacturing industry. That is now gradually being reversed. Legal Outsourcing too is a management science and the issue that is crucial here is one of change management for sure, lawyers historically are not the best managers. The issues pertaining to performance metrics and benchmarks may sound as Hobbit terms to most attorneys.

PromantraLPO

Legal Process Outsourcing is projected to be the second fastest growing segment of the global BPO industry. Legal process outsourcing or LPO as popularly called is not only an attractive proposition for corporations/law firms outside India, but also a great business opportunity for Indian entrepreneurs and professionals. The market is estimated to grow and by 2010 increase to approximately $4 billion business. In the last couple of years the Indian LPO market has seen a substantial expansion by the entry of both, captive as well as third party service provider LPO companies and the existing ITES companies taking a plunge by adding LPO to their existing verticals. Not perturbed by continued market recession, the LPO industry is slated to grow and provide employment to at least 32,000 this year, 40,000 by 2010, and 82,000 by 2015.

This expansion raises questions about the dynamics of establishing and operating an LPO. The objective would certainly revolve round the essentials of providing end-to-end legal services to the global customer. Effectively, LPO is in the process of becoming a logical extension in the business cost pressures that clients undergo. And this in turn makes our existence more viable with a very healthy demand for the quality services.

LPO firms in India are growing and majority of the firms are in for providing large document reviews, litigation and legal back office support, intellectual property and corporate work. Today, the LPO business is all about quality of work and not just generating volumes. Certainly, we are not to be surprised if our clients expect the quality of our legal work to be at a certain high. And why should they accept any lower quality work? The challenges that we face today are cost effectiveness, apprehensions pertaining to quality, data security and attorney-client confidentiality.

PromantraLPO providing quality services

Promantra Synergy Solutions Limited was incorporated in 2003 and started its operations the same year with a vision of pioneering BPO services for the Long Term Health Care Industry and other health related services in the USA. With this goal in mind, the company strategically located its operational headquarter at Hyderabad, India backed by its onsite office at Piscataway, New Jersey, as the center for quality assurance. Promantra has been ranked amongst 100 best Global Outsourcing Company and today it is one of the premier providers of BPO Health Care Services, as well as, niche legal process products to its overseas clients.

Certified to the International Business Standards at ISO 27001:2005 and ISO 9001:2000, we follow a stringent code when it comes to client’s data protection, information security and quality management of our process. Our strong policies and operational strategy have virtually helped us in surpassing our business revenue targets and at the same time maximizing our client’s satisfaction.

It was in the year 2007, when Promantra decided to delve in the business of Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) by adding LPO service to its existing service verticals. PromantraLPO vision has been to enter the much lucrative high end global legal outsourcing market and we focus to achieve our objectives with a highly experienced and professionally trained team of attorneys and paralegals in place.

The Company’s LPO Operation has come a long way since the LPO operation was started and today it serves a long list of clients that includes law firms, attorneys and corporate from all over the United States and Europe. PromantraLPO has indeed carved a niche for itself in the existing global legal market and as of now, our prime focus remains towards expanding our LPO operations further within the US and UK markets.

PromantraLPO, as a part of its stringent Business Model, insists on having a back to back contract with its clients and this is to make sure that there is no spill off when it comes to delivering quality based legal work product. Effectively, this has worked in strengthening business relations with the clients. We have that key advantage and even with today’s market upheaval, Promantra continues to grow with its LPO Operations currently consisting of about 40 member team who works round the clock catering to its client’s need.